Everywhere in central Rome is sentient:
the Coliseum; St Peter’s Square;
the Spanish Steps; Castel Sant’ Angelo –
a towering, cylindrical building,
originally the Emperor Hadrian’s
mausoleum then a bolt hole for besieged
popes and, finally, for centuries,
a prison, and place of execution,
before becoming a museum.
We are approaching the castle this New Year’s Day
across the Ponte Sant Angelo, with its
ten sculptured, twice life-size, Baroque angels.
Beneath the Angel With The Crown Of Thorns
are three Roma children, a boy and two girls,
the latter dressed in long multi-coloured skirts,
their hair hidden by tightly wrapped scarves.
While the older girl begs, the other two
are lighting some kindling they have brought.
The Castel Sant Angelo is the setting
for the final act of Puccini’s ‘Tosca’.
While Napoleon’s army is advancing –
so Rome will be sacked yet again –
Tosca, a famous soprano, stabs
the lecherous Scarpia, Chief of Police.
She thinks she has tricked him into saving
her lover – but the bullets the firing squad
discharges in the prison yard are real
and Cavaradossi, a painter, dies.
In her grief she sings, ‘O Scarpia,
avanti a dio!’, then runs up the steps
to the parapet – where we are standing –
and throws herself over the ramparts.
We can see the snow on the Apennines,
the Tiber flowing fast and olive below,
and, on the bridge, two armed policemen chasing
the children, whose small bonfire is blazing now.
By David Selzer