Ponte Nomentano: the virtual tales of an Old Bridge
I was born with the voice of the Water,
the shouts of the Workers;
I remember, I was an Idea,
when the first trunks crashed,
and ropes and hands and yells and steps,
I woke up, suspended,
between a River and a Road.
My first breath was a slap,
father Aniene waved at me;
I saw uncle Sky, brothers Birds,
I heard drums and prayers
and my mother gave me her Name,
Nomentano.
My name… I have many names,
some I forgot, I am old,
thousands and thousands of Years
on my back, and now, for the people, I am
just the Old Bridge, Ponte Vecchio, they say.
Vecchio, yes, I am old,
but I’ve seen things, I was here,
once before the time,
when the name of Rome was a whisper,
a murmur, a far away sound;
I remember the minsters, slowly
walking my shoulders, in silence,
climbing the mountain, there,
the Mons Sacer, Holy Mountain,
and sight, in the fog, the future;
I remember their eyes,
the first eyes I have seen,
dilating, whiting, crazing,
mirroring Rome.
Roma was there, near and far,
its blood goes by my bones;
my mum rised me with its story,
and I heard the thunder of the battle,
and I dreamt to stand, to fight,
for something I’ve never seen.
And the battle came, many times,
I have been destroyed, I changed,
I have been turned in a fortress,
two towers to stand as the boundary
of nothing.
I have scars with no meaning,
words with no sound;
one tower is lost, who knows when,
why, I became a sheep keeper,
with the honour of passing herds
backward and forward on my back.
I still remember their smell, their bleat,
their aping the power of Rome, Menenio,
are you there? Where I heard you say
…discordia pereunt, concordia valent…
is this what you saw? you dreamt of?
when you turned those people in citizens?
Do it again, Menenio, arise! Someone is calling,
someone is there, I don’t know when, where,
I am old, confused… he was…
…descending from the Holy Mount, we were thinking a lot about the grave of the jovial Menenio. We were three miles far from Rome, we came back and, before passing again the Teverone on the Nomentano bridge, destroyed before by Totila and rebuilt by Narsete, we found, going down a bit in the valley, a very good coffee prepared by our Italian servant, the good Domenico. The cows that now live on the Menenio’s tomb gave us the milk. (Stendhal, Promenades dans Rome)
My face. I see my face. My body, my shape.
Many times, many people have passed,
step on my bones, stress on my arms,
no one stop, to look at what? At me?
Someone sit there, looking at me,
why? I am a bridge, I link, I join, I stand
feet in the water, chaining the road.
Why are you staring at me?
What is happening? What has happened around me?
My fortified walls don’t scare anymore, no one
cross me to foresee the future. Just past,
I am a trace, a relic, a ruin of something that was,
once. And now passengers, travellers, tourists
drink coffee, sitting on the riverside, sketching
me, like an old, pleasant, bucolic fantasy.
The bridge was close up reddish, in the sunlight. The river seemed immobile and metallic in all the lenght of its sinuosity. The canes curved on the riverside, and the waters lightly hurted some poles fixed in the clay, maybe to sustain the lines. (D’Annunzio, Il Piacere)
I am old. I was old when I saw,
Rome, the first time. It was moving,
closer and closer, with big steps
of seven floors blocks. It wasn’t
the Rome I expected; yes, it arrived
with trumpets and brass bands,
but, no, they weren’t for me,
they celebrated the new Garden City,
and yes, the new bridge, to bring
cars, fastness, modernity… how was
that sonnet…ah yes…
Quì, ‘ndove er duca Borgia Valentino
vinse, l’Orsini e li mannò co’ Dio,
mò cianno fatto ‘na città giardino.
Addio campagne belle fossi e prati,
cacce alla volpe e pecorelle, addio…
ve se so’ preso er posto l’impiegati! (Banal, Sonetto)
I know you don’t know this language,
it’s Roman, it says: here, where the Duke Valentino
won the Orsini… (it speaks of old battles, some of the many
I’ve told)… now they have made a garden city. Farewell countrysides,
loans and moats, fox huntings and sheeps, farewell… your place is taken
by employees.
Yes, no more minsters, emperors, kings,
dukes or popes, I am an old,
retired bridge, surrounded by children,
crossed by couples, no more shot by guns,
but by photos, tiled, fragmented,
slowly disappearing, in a dream of something
that was, once before the time.
Co-authors
The story has been realized with the contribution of Martina Orrico (research, plot and script), Eleonora Spagnoli (concept and mapping), Herbert Natta (visual design and English text) and the kind cooperation of Fabrizio Danieli (voice).
