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Rome is as much a city of fountains as it is of churches or palaces, antiquities or urban problems. The more than 300 monumental fountains are an essential part of Rome’s seductive powers. Part of the everyday yet part of the daily surprise, they are points of personal, often sentimental attachment to the city. The Roman composer Ottorino Resphigi found in them inspiration for his orchestral tone poem Fontane di Roma (1917). In their ceaseless pouring forth, they also provide a sense of luxury: on her arrival in 1655, Queen Christina of Sweden, having watched the fountains in St. Peter’s Square, reportedly gave her permission for them to be turned off, only to learn that they flowed all the time.
Every fountain has its history, and many have legends, the best known of which guarantees a return to Rome to those who toss coins into the Trevi Fountain. An earlier fountain on this site, refurbished under Pope Nicholas V in the 15th century, was demolished in the 17th century, when plans were made for a new fountain. The present version was not completed until the 18th century. A scenic wonder, the huge fountain bulges into most of a tiny square and takes up the entire end of an abutting palace. Nicola Salvi won a 1732 competition by designing a late Baroque marble mass of allegorical figures and natural rock formations. It took 30 years to complete. Its water, from the ancient aqueduct called Acqua Vergine, long was considered Rome’s softest and best tasting; for centuries, barrels of it were taken every week to the Vatican and carried off by the jugful by expatriate English tea brewers. Declared nonpotable in 1961, the waters are now recycled by electric pumps.
Out of the rivalry between Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini that so enriched the Roman cityscape arose a legend, still believed and recounted today. It explains that on Bernini’s allegorical Fountain of the Four Rivers, in Piazza Navona, the statue representing the Nile River hides its head to avoid seeing the Borromini facade on the church opposite, and the Río de la Plata figure raises its arm in alarm to prevent the building from falling. The fountain was in fact unveiled in 1651, a year before the church of Sant’Agnese was begun, two years before Borromini was called in, and 15 years before the facade was completed.
The oldest of the city’s fountains is really a spring, the ancient Lacus Juturnae (“Pool of Juturna”) in the Forum, restored in 1952 to the appearance it had in the time of the emperor Augustus. A much newer fountain in the old city is one of the most admired. Inaugurated as simple jets of water in the Piazza Esedra (now the Piazza della Repubblica) by Pope Pius IX in 1870, just 10 days before the troops of united Italy broke into the city, it was probably the last public work dedicated by a pope in his role of temporal magistrate of the city. In 1901 the nymphs frolicking with sea beasts were added.
The least-liked fountain figure in Rome, unpopular since it was installed in 1587, is on the triumphal arch fountain in the Piazza San Bernardo, commissioned by Pope Sixtus V. The figure is a pallid Moses, apparently in imitation of the work by Michelangelo that adorns the tomb of Pope Julius II. Its sculptor, Prospero Bresciano, is said to have been so hurt by the public’s jeers that he died of a broken heart.
People of Rome
Since ancient times, to be a citizen of Rome has been a source of pride. Today there is still considerable prestige in being a Romano di Roma, or “Roman” Roman. Among such Romans are the “black nobility,” families with papal titles who form a society within high society, shunning publicity and not given to great intimacy with the “white nobility,” whose titles were conferred by mere temporal rulers. The inhabitants who consider themselves the most nobly Roman of them all are the people of the Trastevere (“Across the Tiber”) district. In ancient times, Trastevere was the quarter for sailors and foreigners, whereas the founding fathers eastward across the river were soldiers and farmers. From the Middle Ages a number of palaces there were the homes of powerful families.
Although the great majority of Romans are Catholics, the city also is home to a variety of other religious groups. Jewish people, for example, have lived in the city for thousands of years. Jews generally were not persecuted in Rome until the 16th-century pope Paul IV forced them into a ghetto (near Piazza Navona). Later popes carried on his anti-Jewish program. Except for brief respites under Napoleon I and the momentary Roman Republic of 1849, Jews were debarred from all the professions, government service, and landownership until 1870, when Rome was integrated into united Italy and religious persecution outlawed. Later redevelopment destroyed much of the ghetto, although some streets remain, and the position of some of the gates can still be seen.
During the 1930s and following World War II, Italians from all over the south and from rural Lazio arrived seeking work in the capital city. The population of Rome rose particularly rapidly in the 1950s and ’60s, from just over 1,960,000 in 1951 to more than 2,610,000 in 1967. Population growth then slowed, as many Romans moved out of the city proper and into other parts of Roma province.
Since the 1970s Rome has attracted a large number of immigrants from outside Italy. In the early 21st century foreign residents included many relatively affluent people from other member countries of the European Union (EU), particularly France, and from the United States. However, a significant proportion of the city’s immigrants worked in relatively low-paying jobs in the service sector; domestic work and retail trade were common occupations. Most of these immigrants had arrived from the Philippines, Romania, Poland, Peru, Egypt, China, Sri Lanka, or Bangladesh. Others had origins in Morocco, Senegal, Albania, or Ecuador, among other countries. In the main, this immigration has taken place without too much friction, but the late 20th and early 21st centuries did see a rise in racism and violence directed against immigrants. Much of the tension centred on the world of football (soccer), but a sense of unease about immigration was widespread.
Economy
Manufacturing and services
Rome cannot be called an industrial city, although it has a fair amount of medium and light industries. Among these have been the engineering, electronics, and chemical industries, as well as printing, clothing manufacture, and food processing. Factories have been located mostly in the northwestern part of the city, but many closed or relocated during the 1980s and ’90s. The construction industry remains important.
The city’s sizeable publishing industry produces several influential dailies—La Repubblica, Il Messaggero, Il Tempo, and L’Unità—as well as a number of magazines. The motion-picture industry is centred at Cinecittà Studios (constructed in 1937), outside Rome.
Most of the major employers in the city are part of the services sector. Rome is a major market centre for central and southern Italy, although financial exchange remains concentrated in Milan. Government, with its many agencies and ministries, is a particularly large employer. Tourism, however, is the outstanding contributor to the economy of the city. Rome is a major cultural, shopping, and entertainment centre, attracting tens of millions of Italians and foreigners each year. The capital is also a frequent host to conferences and trade fairs. Many visitors, whether bona fide pilgrims or simply tourists interested in the main religious sites, have ties to the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, the church itself—with its communications and souvenir businesses, as well as its direct employment of thousands of priests, nuns, and church workers—plays a significant role in Rome’s economy as well.
Spectator sports contribute notably to the economy. Rome has two main football (soccer) teams, AS Roma and Lazio. The former is traditionally seen as the “city” team, while the latter attracts more support from the peripheries and rural Lazio. Both teams play at the Olympic stadium. Their matches are among the fiercest in world football.
Transportation
Traffic is a typical Roman dilemma because much of the municipal revenue is derived from the more than a million automobiles and motor scooters that render city life difficult. The average noise during waking hours is at or above the level that gradually induces deafness, whereas the average speed of motor traffic, in spite of the audacity and acuity of the drivers, is utterly slow. Beginning in 1973, both to reduce congestion and noise and air pollution, private vehicles were banned from parts of the city’s ancient section. Other attempts have been made to improve the traffic situation, particularly after the election of an environmentally minded mayor, Francesco Rutelli, in 1993. Nevertheless, the basic problems of traffic and parking remain central ones for the city and its province.
Deterioration of the city’s monuments has been accelerated by traffic fumes and vibration, yet the monuments themselves long impeded an undertaking that could reduce road traffic: subway construction. In the first half of the 20th century Mussolini decreed the building of a subway from Rome’s central railway station, the Stazione Termini, and by 1955 it was in operation along a southwestern route. In 1959 a comprehensive metropolitan subway system was approved. After five years of bureaucratic delays, construction of the first line of the system began. The route was diverted to protect monuments, and work on the line temporarily was halted when archaeological remains were unearthed. The second line of the system was completed in 1980. In the 1990s Mayor Rutelli extended the subway system and oversaw the construction of tramlines around the city. Additional lines and extensions have been planned, though the rich archaeological heritage of Rome remains an obstacle.
Rome is served by two international airports. The larger one, Leonardo da Vinci (Fiumicino) Airport, lies on the coast about 15 miles (24 km) southwest of the city. The smaller Ciampino Airport is about 7 miles (11 km) to the southeast.
