The Eternal Table by Karima Moyer-Nocchi & Giancarlo Rolandi

Author:Karima Moyer-Nocchi & Giancarlo Rolandi [Moyer-Nocchi, Karima & Rolandi, Giancarlo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2018-11-26T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 5.1. Detail of Portrait of All Those Going around Rome Selling, portraying 260 sketches of ambulant vendors who filled the streets of Rome. Engraving by Nicolaus van Aeist, c. 1600. Furnished by Roma, Istituto centrale per la grafica and reprinted with the courteous permission of the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attivit. . . . Culturali e del Turismo

The quaintness of sheep and cows grazing in the grassy areas among the ruins of ancient Rome also attracted artists of note from all over Europe, who left a poignant and colorful record of the pastoralized urban areas and the desolate countryside in numerous works. French intellectual Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893) describes the collage of sights and sensations he observed on his visit in the mid 1860s:

Through the arcades you might see green slopes, lofty ruins decked with shrubbery, shafts of columns, trees, heaps of rubbish, a field of tall white reeds [. . .] all forming a singular combination of cultivation and neglect. One encounters this everywhere in traversing Rome—remains of monuments, pieces of gardens, messes of potatoes frying at the bases of antique columns, . . . the odour of old codfish, and on the flanks of a palace, . . . perhaps a bed of artichokes.17

Toward a Modern Market

Affixed to the wall of Portico d’Ottavia in the Roman Ghetto is a marble plaque engraved with the following words: Capita piscium hoc marmoreo schemate longitudine majorum usque ad primas pinnas inclusive conservatoribus danto (“The head, up to and including the first fins, of any fish longer than this plaque must be given to the conservatori”). Under the inscription is a depiction of a stocky sturgeon, harking back to a time when these fish teamed in the waters of the Tiber, some of considerable dimensions. Given that the plaque itself is nearly four feet long, the head up to the first fins was a sizable piece of fish.

Not only was it a fair-sized chunk, the head of a fish was the most prized part, sought out for the flavorful soups and sauces it rendered; hence the ecclesiastics saw to it that they never reached the marketplace and were kept as the exclusive reserve of the table of the high clergy. But why was this plaque hung on this wall? For centuries this arch was the access point to the city’s main fish market. Here, upon the ancient ruins of a structure erected by Emperor Augustus c. 27 BCE, the church Sant’Angelo in Pescheria, or Holy Angel in the Fish market, was built (eighth century). In 1571, the Confraternity of Fishmongers, one of Rome’s oldest and most powerful guilds, undertook its upkeep and it was repaired, and restored many times over. In front of Sant’Angelo, numerous inclined slabs of marble were lined up where the day’s catch was displayed. The prelate Paolo Giovio (1483–1552), a frequent presence at the papal table and enthusiastic ichthyologist, wrote a volume about the fish of Rome claiming there were ninety-six varieties in the Tiber alone.

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