Hotelrome.net Blog : A guide to news and events in Rome

Our Blogger: Wanda

The National Museum of Pasta Foods is unique in the world. The museum is located in the historica center of Rome next to the Quirinale and near the Trevi Fountain.

The Museum shows the pasta as it is born from the wheat and the methods that were used to produce it in antiquity until today’s times with the advances of new technology.

On its many rooms the museum exhibits an extensive documentation of the most popular Italian food, that now is a symbol of this country and its culinary tradition.

On display on the museum you’ll see an ancient grindstone called “gramola” used to amalgamate the mix of bran and water from which all kinds of pasta come from. In the museum you’ll discover too the different ways to produce pasta and how the different “formats” of pasta (spaghetti, ravioli, etc) were created. There are too on display many tools used to make hand-made pasta and you’ll learn too about the many nutritional virtues of this alimentary good. On the basement of the museum you’ll discover more about the relation between pasta and art, cinema and theatre.

The museum tells as well a part of the history of Italy through the pasta, a food that is virtually a cultural treasure of the country, and the protagonist of the very important family ritual of lunch.

Besides the stable exposition the museum organizes as well seminars dedicated to increase the knowledge about the pasta in its aspects, qualitative, nutritive, productive and cultural.

When you decide to take a holiday in Rome, don’t miss the occasion to visit the National museum of Pasta Foods. At Hotel Des Artistes we will be more than happy to give you all the necessary information to visit this and many other famous museums in Rome.

The museum is open everyday from 9.30 until 17.30
P.zza Scanderberg, 117
00187 Roma
Tel. 06 6991119 6991120
Fax. 06 6991109

In October of 1987 was born at a stone’s throw from the Spanish steps, Gilda an elegant, comfortable and sophisticated night club in the heart of the city, and it soon became the living room of worldly Roman nights. A great success that has never really slowed down: loved and hated now as then, The Gilda is the meeting place for actors, writers, politicians and artists and one of the better known clubs in the city. Here you must be properly dressed and to get in is necessary to pass a selection that can be called “strict” to say the least.

Today it is difficult to name a public personality who has never been at the Gilda, or one of them who has never chosen it at least once to celebrate there the premiere of a film or their birthday. In my opinion there is no formula for success, especially in this business so dependant on fashion and mood, anyway a couple of ingredients that have helped to build the Gilda’s success are professionalism, passion, a devoted staff, a youthful attitude and a strong constitution, because they must sleep so little!

A new destination for the trendy crowd in the capital is the restaurant and sushi bar, LE CRU, attached to the disco but independent of it. A warm and welcoming place, that uses functional wooden sculptures and original works of art, where you can eat until late at night, drinking and chatting in a friendly and lively music lounge, or just chill out with a great soundtrack. The menu proposes large dishes of Mediterranean cuisine, in addition to shellfish, sushi and sashami, accompanied by a sophisticated selection of wine and spirits.

As mentioned above the Gilda is located only a few blocks away from the Spanish steps, so to get there just get off at Spagna sation and then follow this map. Their address is Via Mario De’ Fiori 97. And if you are coming back from there after 11:30 (when the subway shuts down) just take the bus n5 from Via del Tritone to get to the Termini station where are the conveniently located Hotel Des Artistes and Yes Hotel!

Our Blogger: Diana

VILLA DE MEDICI

 Originally part of the Gardens of Locullus, Villa de Medici became part of the properties of the Medici family in 1576. The palace gave a concrete shape of the noble ascendancy of this family and its permanent settlement in Rome at that time.

Villa de Medici has hosted the French Academy since 1803 – a decision made by Napoleon Bonaparte, and more recently it’s become a centre of cultural exchanges, seminars and exhibitions.

BERTRAND LAVIER

Born in 1949 in Chatillon-sur-Seine, Bertrand Lavier is considered one of the most influential artists among his generation. His installations and art works question form and the art conventions with the aim to explore the deep relationship between the pictorial reality (the object itself) and the language (the idea we have of the object). His radicalism made him place a refrigerator over a safe box in one of his most scandalous works, following the lesson of Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades in the 1920s.

A great opportunity to analyze this charismatic figure is the exhibition taking place from January 28^th until March 08^th in the charming panorama of Villa De Medici in Rome (close to the Spanish Steps), presenting a range of forty works recollecting the whole artistic life of the author since the early 1980s. And while there why not check into Hotel Des Artistes? Our prices for all sorts of rooms can’t be beat.

ACCADEMIA DI FRANCIA

Via Trinità dei Monti, 1

Metro stop: Spagna

Our blogger: Stefano

The most famous ITALIAN car manufacturer in the world is Ferrari SPA. IT Was founded by Enzo Ferrari and its symbol is the "Cavallino Rampant" – the rampant horse. 
The company was BORN officially on 1 September 1939 in Modena with the foundation from Enzo Ferrari’s Auto Avio Costruzioni.
His first duty was constructing parts of airplanes but from 1947 he began to make cars. The first car was built in only two copies, the Auto Avio Costruzioni 815, in 1940. It was a spyder car designed entirely by Enzo Ferrari. It couldn’t be marketed under the brand name because of a contractual clause with Alfa Romeo.

These two spyder cars were built with Fiat parts, both the chassis and the engine (an 8-cylinder in-line 1496 cc, derived from Fiat 508c 1100) were made in Turin.
The first car to bear the name Ferrari, however, was the Ferrari 125 S. It was a boat with wheels, whose mechanics were obtained the following year. The application of the name Ferrari in union with the trade name happened again in 1943, in connection with the transfer of assets to the new factory in Maranello. 

The name Auto Avio Costruzioni remained active until 1947, then in 1960 there was the shift to joint stock companies and the new name of SEFA – it stood in English for Company Operations and Production Car Racing.
In 1975, Ferrari SpA joined the Fiat group. In 1988, with the death of Enzo Ferrari, the shares switched to FIAT, 90 per cent in total, and the remainder went to Enzo’s son Piero Ferrari Lardi who remains in the team today as corporate vice president.

In 2006 a five per cent stake was acquired by a company from the United Arab Emirates, a company that is promoting the construction of the first theme park Prancing Horse in the same country.

Our Blogger: Marcello

When one thinks of the most mad men that have ever existed in history Caligula’s name appears among the top ten for sure. His real name was Gaius Caesar Germanico, but he gained his dubious G fame as Caligula (from the term Caliga, a military sandal).

The problem of evil is compounded by a fact: the power. The power multiplying the extent of their evil. Throughout his life, you can see how close power was to him. He gives the perfect example of how a man go mad for power.

At the very moment he assumed the authority as the Emperor, Caligula gives a clear proof of his deviant nature. When his uncle Tiberius (who had adopted him) was lying on his bed dying Caligula was proclaimed emperor (Tiberius had been already given up for dead). When the ‘’dead’’ asked for a glass of water, Caligula, who was already wearing the imperial ring, was terrified. Then Macro (a friend), intending to make things simple, decided to suffocate Tiberius with a pillow. Simple indeed, easy and clean.

Caligula was not an attractive man, emphasizing his terrifying aspect by his habit of continually testing various grimaces with which he wanted to scare even further the people around him. The Emperor intentionally practiced sadism that was not limited to the physical but also psychological, through the eyes, transmitting fear by his look. He loved to be hated as long as his was feared.

His mental instability was clear even to him, and he seriously considered withdrawing from imperial power and putting himself in the hands of those who could heal him. His illness was not unique, a result of very high fevers suffered in early childhood.

Surprisingly enough, Caligula inaugurated his reign by the exercise of a tolerant policy as a reaction to the evil of despotism of his predecessor, his patron Tiberius. He established the elections in which judges were chosen by vote. Moreover, no one denied his love for the disadvantaged and their hatred for the rich, something which was to be his undoing.

In these early days, he won the support of the Romans, who loved him. Nevertheless everything went wrong when, in just one year, all the treasure he had inherited from Tiberius was spent, some 2,700 million sesterces, having to fill that huge hole with new and burdensome taxes, with no exception to anyone.

During his many disappointments, feeling secure in absolute ruin, he arrived to beg in the Roman streets … While suffering the fever of misery more or less imaginary, but no less obsessive, he went to confiscate the assets of his own sisters.

Caligula soon forgot his first period of golden reign, perhaps suffering a mental illness that led to endless nights of insomnia. He also continued to suffer from horrific attacks of epilepsy, which increased the Emperor’s cruelty.

His schizophrenia made him hate, for the most part famous contemporary writers, ordering the destruction (although in the end it didn’t succeed) of all the works of Homer, Virgil, Livy and others…

As proof of his eccentricities during a serious illness that appeared to be the final straw, Caligula appointed his beloved sister and wife as his successor(for He felt an irrepresible incestuous love ). He used to justified this unusual relationship with examples of his beloved Egypt.

At banquets, the emperor used to scrutinize the ladies in attendance, and wouldn’t avoid skirt lifting. He also enjoyed divorcing. In the absence of their husbands, high-ranking women would have relationships with him.

To talk even more about his absurd behaviour, Caligula appointed his favourite horse Incitatus (Impetuous) as a Roman Consul , endowed with abundant servitude at their disposal.

He said once: ‘’I wish that people only had one head so it could be cut just once’’

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He kept a personal account at his own large brothel, built within the walls of his palace, and it was a flourishing business.

The executions he ordered were so numerous in amount that sometimes there was no reason for it, such as the poet Aletto, who was burned alive because the emperor believed he used rhetoric in some verses of his writing.

To illustrate his wickedness, another of his phrases was: "Hurt them, so by that they realize they will die."

Eventually Caligula was murdered as a result of his abuse. He died to find his limits. He who had played with the limits of power claiming to be a God. The death came to remind him about his mortal nature.

The lesson of Caligula’s life is the danger of unlimited power in human nature, which in itself is limited and imperfect. Power, fear, madness, death. Caligula …

To learn more about this great ruler and the rest of ancient Roman history, come and visit the eternal city at Lucci Hotel.