The Knights of Malta

Everyone knows that The Vatican City is a separate country inside the city of Rome. Until 1861 and Independence from Austria, Italy was a geographical expression. When Garibaldi led his March On Rome from Sicily, most of his troops and just about all of his officers were not Italian. There was a goodly number of former Confederate States of America soldiers of Fortune, and some French including the author of The Count of Monte Cristo. Most of his troops never heard of Italy, and when they shouted Viva Italia! they hardly knew what they were cheering. Italian nationalism was built brick at a time up to World War I, and nurtured by Mussolini who was for a while a lot more popular than the House of Savoy monarchy whose servant he was, at least in theory.

The Kingdom was formed in 1861 with Turin as the capital. (That, I am told, was then moved to Florence later.) Of course everyone knew the Capital ought to be Rome, but French troops protected Rome as the Patrimony of St. Peter, and the Pope continued to rule the city until 1870, when Italian forces broke into the city through the Porta Pia. Italy was unified and the Pope confined to the Vatican, where he thundered condemnations of the country which had dared take away his temporal kingdom.

One reason for Mussolini's popularity was that he concluded a Concordat with the Pope. When the Royal forces of the House of Savoy marched into Rome, the city and much of the country around it was part of the Papal States, of which the Pope was absolute ruler. Puccini's opera Tosca gives Rome a King and Queen during the time of Napoleon; actually there wasn't one then, although Napoleon named his infant son The King Of Rome, and his rather strange sister Paula married the Borghesa heir (and began selling off his art collection, much of which ended up in the Louvre). Verdi didn't want to make the evil Baron Scarpia an agent of the Pope; or didn't dare, in any event. After the unification of Italy in 1870, the Pope retreated to the Vatican and wouldn't come out. Italy was deprived of its spiritual leader, and the people didn't much like that.

Mussolini in the name of the Monarchy concluded a Concordat under which the Pope remains the absolute ruler of the Vatican, and the Vatican remains a sovereign nation, with its own army of Swiss Guard who are also its police. Much of the city services are provided by the Senate and People of Rome (i.e. the Roman City Council), but this is always at the request of the Vatican. You will sometimes see Roman Municipal Police keeping order at the edges of St. Peter's Square, but they have no actual right to come into the Vatican without invitation.

It's not generally known that there is a second foreign nation within the city of Rome (and for that matter a third within Italy, a small mountain Republic, San Marino: it even has its own web site. But that's another story). Unlike the Vatican, The Sovereign and Military Order of Malta (S. M. O. M.) -- (The Knights of Malta, originally the Knights of St. John) can issue only three passports, but the Grand Master and his two deputies can in fact travel on those passports and aren't citizens of Italy. Just how much sovereignty the Knights hold over their grounds high on the Aventine Hill isn't clear, but their flag flies there, and they control entrance to the grounds. The best known fact about the SMOM is that if you look through the keyhole of their main gate, you will see a garden overarched with trees, and through those trees the Dome of St. Peter's about 2 miles away. It's not a photographical view, or at least not one with cameras I have.

I had set out to find the SMOM again: I saw it the last time I was in Rome some years ago. It's south of the Capitoline and Palatine hills. Our apartment is well north of there. The first part of my trip led down the Via Flaminia. You can read about that here. Continuing,

the trip takes us along the Tiber at Tiber Island. That's looking downriver from the Ponte Garibaldi. Turn left and you see the Tarpaian Rock, which we won't get to today. In ancient times they executed traitors by flinging them off that rock.

A bit further south is the new Ponte Palatino, built to replace the Rotten Bridge whose remains you can see standing there in the middle of the river and not connected to either end. Remember the high water marks at Santa Maria sopra Minerva? That's considerably higher than the banks of this river, meaning that all those buildings on Tiber Island were flooded, and it's no wonder that the old Rotten Bridge (the first stone bridge across the Tiber, built in Republican times about 200 B.C.) was undermined more than once. It was rebuilt a couple of times, but the Popes eventually built the new Ponte Palatino, leaving the Rotten Bridge to its fate despite it having had a small church in its center.

Looking south from the Ponte Palatine I think I see my objective high on the hill to the south.

Part of the view from along the river is the old Forum.

Looking down river you can see that it's pretty wild. I wish the Los Angeles River preserved as much of the ecology. There is a paved walk along the far side of the river, but down below me, while it's accessible by stairs, the only people down there are a few derelicts who sleep under the bridge. You see derelicts in many places in Rome. Some have staked out claims to ramparts near Castel Sant'Angelo.

The objective is definitely in sight: That's the SMOM flag (A Maltese Cross) up there, and further along are the gates to their grounds. Alas, these aren't the gates with the view through the keyhole: these are at Tiber level, and the garden gates are up there on top of that hill -- and there's no simple way up there. You can get there, but it isn't easy, because what you are seeing there is the old Servian Wall of the city of Rome: and those walls don't have many open gates around here. To get there I have to walk around to a gate and climb the hill, and I won't get to do that today.

I did get around the corner, to find that the old city walls and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta walls now house car agencies. Several of them, most not Italian. This leads one to speculate on the Paths of Glory, but that's another story for another time. If you do get to Rome and you have some time, a walk down the Tiber and up the Aventine to look through the keyhole of the SMOM grounds is worth the effort. Since I'd already done it years ago -- and that view won't have changed -- and I was running out of time, I didn't today.

Continued.