Coppedè

The Coppedè district occupies the block between Via Tagliamento, Via Arno, Via Ombrone, Via Serchio, Via Reno, Via Clitunno and Via Adige as far as Piazza Trasimeno, in the Trieste district, northeast of the center of Rome. The geometric and sentimental center is Piazza Mincio. No ticket is paid: Coppedè is a piece of city that is open, walkable 24 hours a day, without turnstiles, without hours and without reservation, because you visit it walking on public streets. The buildings, on the other hand, are all private: doorways, entrance halls, courtyards and stairs can't be visited, and no custodian will let you in. The monumental entrance is the arch that spans Via Dora between the two Palazzi degli Ambasciatori, on the side of Via Tagliamento, at numbers 8-12. By metro the useful stop is Sant'Agnese/Annibaliano, on the B1 branch of line B, opened to the public on June 13, 2012: from there you continue on foot toward Via Tagliamento. The surface lines serving Viale Regina Margherita and Via Nomentana change numbering and route fairly often, so it's best to check the updated route on the transport company's site before leaving.

Anyone who arrives here expecting a museum is thrown for the first three minutes, then gets it. Coppedè is a giant condominium disguised as a fairy tale, a piece of medieval Florence that quarreled with a Babylonian temple and made peace thanks to a fountain full of frogs. Within a radius of 200 meters you go from the lion of Saint Mark to the Capitoline she-wolf, from the Holy Grail to a horse with an anvil, from a zodiacal clock to a stone spider. It's the only corner of Rome where early-20th-century eclecticism was applied to an entire block instead of to an isolated villa, and this makes it, from the architectural point of view, a case study without rivals in Italy.

If you're building a Roman itinerary off the obligatory circuits, this area combines well with Villa Torlonia and with the Casina delle Civette, which of this same decorative taste are the older, aristocratic variant.

Where Coppedè is and how to get there

The first misunderstanding to dispel concerns the name. Coppedè is not a district in the administrative sense of the term: it's a private building complex built inside the Trieste district, Q. XVII, established on May 24, 1926 under the name of Savoia and later renamed. No resolution ever created a Coppedè district: the name was born from the common usage of Romans, who baptized the block with the surname of the architect who imagined it. On official maps, therefore, look for it as an area inside the Trieste district, right next to the border with the Salaria zone and a short distance from the Parioli.

The exact address of Coppedè

The address to give to whoever takes you there is Piazza Mincio, Rome. From there radiate the seven streets that make up the complex: Via Dora, Via Brenta, Via Tanaro, Via Aterno, Via Olona, Via Ombrone and Via Arno. They all bear names of Italian rivers, and this is not a whim of Coppedè but the result of the place-naming criterion adopted for the entire Trieste district, where streets are named after the peninsula's watercourses. The most scenic access remains the one from Via Tagliamento: you arrive walking along a completely ordinary street, with shops, 20th-century doorways and traffic, and suddenly you're under an arch that seems to have come out of a children's illustration.

Coppedè by the B1 metro

The Sant'Agnese/Annibaliano station belongs to the B1 branch of line B, the one that splits off from Bologna station and continues north with the stops Libia, Conca d'Oro and Jonio. The stretch up to Conca d'Oro entered service on June 13, 2012, the extension to Jonio on April 21, 2015. The branch's stations were designed by the ABDR studio, and for an attentive visitor this is already a small appetizer: you leave a contemporary architecture of glass and concrete and in a quarter of an hour on foot you enter a carnival of turrets and mullioned windows built a century earlier.

To Coppedè on foot, starting from Villa Torlonia

The best way to get there, if you have time, is on foot along Via Nomentana, starting from the gate of Villa Torlonia. You cross the park, look at the Casino Nobile and stop in front of the Casina delle Civette, then exit on Viale Regina Margherita side and head toward Via Tagliamento. The route takes about 20 minutes and has an advantage no taxi will give you: it makes you understand, walking, how Rome grew in those years, block after block, with the Umbertine palazzine making room for the first experiments of the early 20th century.

How much it costs to visit Coppedè and when it's best to go

It costs zero. That's the short answer, and it's also the reason Coppedè should be at the top of the list of those visiting Rome on a tight budget. There's no ticket, no reduced rate, no first Sunday of the month: you just walk in, because these are municipal streets open to the public. What you can't buy, and nobody sells, is admission to the buildings. Anyone who promises you a visit to the interiors of the Palazzi degli Ambasciatori or the Villini delle Fate is telling you a fairy tale: they are inhabited condominiums, with families living in them, and the only architecture you can legitimately observe is the exterior.

The unwritten rules for visiting Coppedè

There are behaviors that here make the difference between a visitor and a problem. The windows of the Villini delle Fate look onto narrow streets: photographing with a telephoto lens into someone else's living room is rude, and residents notice. Doors aren't pushed open. Courtyards aren't crossed. The Fountain of the Frogs is not a swimming pool, and the 1965 episode we'll talk about further on doesn't authorize anyone to repeat it. On the sidewalk of Piazza Mincio, finally, groups should be kept compact: the square is small, local traffic really passes, and 30 people scattered become a traffic jam in 30 seconds.

The right time to see Coppedè

The judgment is clear: Coppedè should be seen early in the morning, between 08:00 and 10:00, or in the last hour of light. The reason is technical and concerns the facades. The painted decorations and the graffiti of the Villini delle Fate are in very low relief: with the high sun straight overhead they flatten and get lost, while with raking light they stand out and can be read one by one. In the central hours of a summer day, moreover, Piazza Mincio is a frying pan: no shade, no bar on the square and no bench. The very worst moment is an early afternoon in July. The best, for those not afraid of humidity, is a November morning after the rain, when the majolica tiles shine.

Who Gino Coppedè was, the man who signed the district

Luigi Coppedè, whom everyone knows as Gino, was born in Florence on September 26, 1866, son of Mariano Coppedè and Antonietta Bizzarri, and brother of the architect Adolfo. He died in Rome on September 20, 1927, of a pulmonary gangrene that complicated a surgical operation: he had turned 60 four days earlier, and the Roman district that bears his name was still an open construction site.

From his father's workshop to the Florence Academy

Coppedè's training explains almost everything you see at Piazza Mincio. He studied at the Professional School of Industrial Decorative Arts in Florence and between 1885 and 1890 worked in his father's workshop, where he learned woodcarving. He didn't come to architecture from mathematics or engineering, but from craft: from the hand that carves a piece of furniture, that draws wrought iron, that decides how an acanthus leaf must turn around a corner. The diploma in architectural drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence came in 1891, afterward. Whoever looks at Coppedè with the eye of the academy finds it unruly, whoever looks at it with the craftsman's eye understands that every centimeter of those facades was thought out the way a carving is thought out.

Castello Mackenzie and the Genoese season

In 1889 he married Beatrice Romanelli, daughter of the sculptor Pasquale Romanelli, and had three daughters. He taught at the Royal Puccini Orphanage in Pistoia, then around 1890 moved to Genoa, and there built his professional fortune. The work that established him was the Castello Mackenzie, built between 1897 and 1902, a colossal exercise in neo-medievalism commissioned by a Scottish insurer. Genoa gave him commissions in series, appointments on municipal commissions and, above all, a method: building entire districts with a recognizable language, so that the real estate operation would also become an image operation. Among his other works, Villa La Gaeta on Lake Como is remembered, completed in 1921, as well as villas scattered across Italy and Switzerland and works in Messina.

The Roman commission of 1915

Coppedè came to Rome called by the financiers Cerruti and Becchi, who wanted to repeat with him in the capital the operation already begun in Genoa. The commission is from 1915. The architectural dictionary of Pevsner, Fleming and Honour gives 1912 as the date of the project, but the first official presentation dates from October 19, 1916, and this brings the actual design back to 1915. There's no point quarreling over this discrepancy: what matters is that between 1915 and 1916 a Florentine architect trained between Florence and Genoa obtained the right to design alone an entire Roman block, something nobody else has ever managed again.

How the Coppedè district came about

In 1915 the Società Anonima Edilizia Moderna, headquartered in Piazza di Pietra and with Aonzo Arnaldo as managing director, imagines a new residential area in Rome, adjacent to Piazza Quadrata, which today is called Piazza Buenos Aires, at the edge of the Parioli and between the Salario and Trieste districts, then brand new. The project is entrusted to Gino Coppedè. The plan of the work provides for 18 palazzi and 27 between palazzine and villini, arranged around the central core of Piazza Mincio.

The Sanjust di Teulada master plan

The operation is grafted onto the 1909 master plan of the engineer Edmondo Sanjust di Teulada, approved under Mayor Ernesto Nathan. That plan divided the city into zones with differentiated building density and assigned this area to palazzine and villini, that is to upscale building and not to working-class tenements. It's a clarification that seems bureaucratic and is instead decisive: without that designation, Coppedè could not have drawn turrets, loggias and little gardens, and Piazza Mincio would today be a block of identical six-story houses like 1,000 others.

The tug of war with the building commission

The site proceeded amid continual difficulties and clashes between the building commission and the architect, with constraints imposed by the superintendency. In 1918, by concession of the then urban planning councilor Galassi, the question of the lot on Via Po was unblocked. In February of the same 1918 the project of the Palazzi degli Ambasciatori was approved, but on a precise condition: close the diagonal street, today's Via Dora, and turn it into a private street. In 1920 the commission rejected the construction of the Villini delle Fate on Via Rubicone. The most interesting document of the whole affair, however, bears the date of August 23, 1917, when the building commission formally asked Coppedè to give the district a Roman stamp.

The request for Romanness and how Coppedè got around it

Coppedè obeyed and disobeyed at once, which is the way intelligent architects work when they receive an order they don't share. He adopted the theme of ancient Rome in the frames and moldings of imperial taste and designed a large arch that recalls the triumphal arches of the Forums. He chose travertine, the Roman stone par excellence, precisely in homage to the requested Romanness. Then, under that obedient wrapper, he went on doing what he wanted: Tuscan mullioned windows, Venetian lions, Florentine graffiti, Barberini bees, zodiacal clocks. The commission got the form, Coppedè kept the substance.

The district after Coppedè's death

In 1921 the Palazzi degli Ambasciatori are completed, which are the monumental front of the whole operation. Coppedè dies in 1927 leaving the complex unfinished, and completion passes to Paolo Emilio André. Anyone walking today along Via Ombrone and Via Olona sees the result of this handover: some buildings have the master's decorative exuberance, others greater composure, almost a cooling of the language. It's not a flaw, it's a double signature, and recognizing it is one of the small pleasures of the visit.

The entrance arch of Coppedè on Via Tagliamento

The main entrance to the Coppedè district, from Via Tagliamento side, is a large arch joining the two Palazzi degli Ambasciatori by spanning Via Dora. Just before the arch there is an aedicule with a statue of the Madonna and Child, a detail almost nobody notices and that says a lot about the way the operation wanted to fit into neighborhood devotion. Under the arch, besides two balconies, hangs a large wrought-iron chandelier, the most photographed object of the whole complex.

The wrought-iron chandelier

The chandelier hanging under the arch is the signature of the craftsman who lives inside the architect. Coppedè came from carving and the workshop, and into that piece of worked iron he put the same kind of care a cabinetmaker puts into a frame. Look at it from below, on axis, and then move two meters: it changes completely, because the design isn't symmetrical. It's the first clue to the rule that governs the whole district.

Asymmetry as the rule of the Coppedè arch

The arch is decorated with a great many architectural elements arranged in a deliberately asymmetrical way. It's not approximation: it's a principle. In an academic building elements mirror each other left and right of an axis. Here they don't. A mullioned window on the left has no twin on the right, a relief finds no reflection, a window shifts half a meter from the one on the floor below. The eye, used to the symmetry of Roman classicism, stays permanently in motion and never finds a resting point. The sense of unreality everyone feels on entering Coppedè is born here, not from the decorations.

The winged Victory and the eagles of the great arch

The great central arch is decorated with paintings depicting a winged Victory and with mosaics depicting eagles. Inside the arch is the dedication to Coppedè. On the third floor appears a decoration with a cup recalling the Holy Grail, and this is enough to explain why the district has attracted over the years every sort of esoteric reading. On the corner turret on Via Tagliamento runs the inscription "Anno Domini MCMXXI", which presumably indicates the construction date, accompanied by bas-reliefs with anthropomorphic figures.

The Palazzi degli Ambasciatori of Coppedè

The Palazzi degli Ambasciatori are at Via Tagliamento 8-12, Via Brenta 2-2a, Piazza Mincio 1, Via Dora 1-2 and Via Tanaro 5. The complex is made of two triangular-plan blocks separated by Via Dora and divided into five levels. Near the corner between Via Arno and Via Tagliamento two turrets rise, while the roof is solved with a terrace. Between the two triangular blocks are the service rooms and five stair shafts intended for the elevators: a datum that, in 1921, indicated a level of comfort of luxury housing.

Via Tanaro side is marked by projecting bodies on several levels, with different windows on each floor. Here too the rule is continuous variation: no two openings are alike, and the facade reads as a sequence of episodes rather than a repeated order. The complex's name comes from the diplomatic seats that over time settled in the area. The embassy of South Africa is on Via Tanaro, while on Via Brenta are those of Morocco and Bolivia.

The Fountain of the Frogs in Piazza Mincio

Past the arch you reach Piazza Mincio, the center of the district, and at the center of the square stands the Fountain of the Frogs, designed and built by Gino Coppedè in 1924. It's the only work of the complex that belongs to everyone: the buildings are private, the fountain is public, and around it all the life of the square is organized.

What the Fountain of the Frogs is like

The fountain consists of a central basin, a few centimeters higher than street level, with four pairs of figures: each holds up a shell on which sits a frog from whose mouth water spurts toward the inside of the basin. From the center rises a second basin, about two meters tall, whose rim is topped by another eight frogs. The final count is therefore 12 frogs, four below on the shells and eight above on the bowl, and on the lower part run four masks. The composition is laid out on a quatrefoil platform and the stylistic register is a full neo-Baroque, with no half measures.

The homage to the Turtle Fountain

Anyone who knows Rome recognizes the model right away. The whole closely recalls the Turtle Fountain in Piazza Mattei, which it seems to want to pay homage to: same idea of small animals perched on the rim of the bowl, same domestic scale, same choice to play with water instead of celebrating it. The shells and a bee sculpted on the rim refer instead to the repertoire of Bernini's fountains, the very ones admired in the Triton Fountain and the Fountain of the Four Rivers. Coppedè, who wasn't Roman, quotes Rome with the enthusiasm of someone who chose it.

The Beatles' bath, between news and legend

Around the basin there has circulated for decades the district's most famous tale: the Beatles, after a night at the Piper, supposedly dived into the fountain. The Piper Club on Via Tagliamento was inaugurated on February 17, 1965 and sits right across from the entrance of Coppedè, which makes the geography of the story perfectly plausible. The documented record, however, doesn't confirm the bath: the tale must be told for what it is, an urban legend of excellent quality, born from the physical closeness between the temple of Roman beat and the district's most photogenic fountain. Which, thinking about it, is already a better story than many verified ones.

The Palazzo del Ragno of Coppedè

The Palazzo del Ragno is at Piazza Mincio 4 and dates from 1916-1926, so it covers almost entirely the construction history of the complex. The name comes from the decoration placed above the main entrance door: a large spider, which anyone who has seen it once never forgets. The building is divided into four floors, has a turret and on the third level a little balcony with a loggia.

The spider, the horse and the word Labor

Above the little balcony runs a painting in ocher and black depicting a horse topped by an anvil between two griffins, with the inscription "Labor". It's the ideological manifesto of the whole operation: the spider that weaves without rest, the blacksmith's anvil, the work horse and the Latin word meaning toil. In the Rome of 1916, where the prevailing rhetoric celebrated legions and emperors, a client who chooses to celebrate craft labor above his own doorway takes a side. The spider, then, in the symbolic tradition is the animal that builds with what it produces by itself, and for an architect who came from his father's workshop it's almost a self-portrait.

The motto of Via Tanaro

On Via Tanaro front is depicted the motto "Maiorum exempla ostendo/artis praecepta recentis", which can be rendered as "I show the examples of the ancients and the precepts of recent art". It's the most explicit statement of poetics Coppedè left on the page, and it's also the key to understanding why the district is not a historical fake but a consciously modern construction that uses the past as a repertoire. Whoever accuses Coppedè of having made scenography should read that motto: the architect put it on the facade precisely to answer the accusation in advance.

The Villini delle Fate, Coppedè's masterpiece

The so-called Villini delle Fate are at Via Aterno 4, Piazza Mincio 3 and Via Brenta 7-11. They are the building everyone photographs and the one almost nobody really looks at, because it takes time and a minimum of method. The exterior facades are made with such finesse that in some spots they seem woven in silk and embroidered in gold: the definition is as old as the district and remains the most exact. Among the materials used are marble, bricks, travertine, terracotta and glass, while the gate is of wood and wrought iron.

The decorative program of the Villini is a small geography of Italy. Florence is exalted with the inscription "FIORENZA BELLA" and with Florentine decorations depicting Dante and Petrarch. Via Brenta side is dedicated to Venice with the lion of Saint Mark. Rome appears with the she-wolf and the twins. Coppedè, Florentine by birth and Genoese by career, arrived in Rome on commission from northern financiers, put on the facade exactly his own biographical path.

Via Aterno side of the Villini delle Fate

On Via Aterno side the division into horizontal bands dominates the left part: in the lower area, near the first floor, runs a geometric decoration, while on the second floor a painting with human figures placed in the mullioned windows opens, recalling the drawings of illustrious men and women in the Villa Carducci at Legnaia by Andrea del Castagno. The figures reproduced are five: a woman in a toga, a woman in a peplos, a woman in ancient-style clothes, a man with beard, armor and scimitar, and a man with sword and hat. The reference to Andrea del Castagno is not random: the Legnaia cycle, painted around 1450, is one of the manifestos of Florentine figurative humanism, and quoting it on a 20th-century Roman facade means claiming a precise descent.

Via Aterno front is composed of several projecting bodies. The first body on the left has a four-light window between the portraits of Petrarch and Dante. A signature with the date 1954 is presumably connected to a restoration, not to the original construction. On the raised ground floor opens a window with two small columns and a painting with a festoon and putti, as well as a relief decoration representing a bee. The second body presents a series of three windows separated by small columns. On the second floor the painting depicts Florence with the inscription "FIORENZA BELLA", in a corner appears a figure on horseback, the floor is closed by a great arch with reliefs of bees and coats of arms, and under the loggia is a decoration with a falconer and his falcon. The third body rises into a turret with festoons and putti: under a mullioned window is placed a clock with zodiacal motifs, below a coat of arms with a biscione, on the second floor a painting with a procession of nuns and Franciscan friars, and at the corner an access staircase with loggia, itself decorated with angels.

Via Brenta side of the Villini delle Fate

Via Brenta side is composed of three projecting bodies. The first on the left is a turret that on the second floor bears the decorations with the winged lion of Saint Mark and the eagle of Saint John: under the eagle runs a procession, under the lion a sailing ship, and festoons and little putti complete the facade. The second body has a small loggia with floral decorations, two great arches with reliefs of bees and bunches of grapes on the archivolt, coats of arms and small leaves inside, and a fake graffito with two little angels. The third body carries putti at the top. On the middle floor a little balcony with the she-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus. On the lower floor putti and stylized leaves.

The practical advice for this facade is only one: stand on the opposite sidewalk and raise your gaze by degrees, one floor at a time, instead of taking an overall photo that will contain nothing readable. The four evangelists appear here in allusive form through their symbols, the lion and the eagle, and their presence next to a merchant sailing ship and a bunch of grapes tells the way Coppedè mixed sacred, commerce and nature without hierarchy.

Via Olona front and the tree of life

On Via Olona front appears a depiction of the tree of life, and at the center a painting with a sundial. Among the other decorations you recognize a battle scene accompanied by the inscription "Domus pacis", house of peace, and then the inscriptions "Domino laetitia praebeo" and "E paetre/ex arte venustas", while under the corner of the gabled roof a dovecote is carved out. The juxtaposition of a painted battle and the word peace is not an oversight: it's the kind of cultured short circuit Coppedè loved, and it should be read as a wish, not as a description.

The other buildings of Coppedè, one by one

All the properties designed by the architect Coppedè are oriented to a modern vision of living spaces: division between day area and night area, rethinking of spaces according to clients' requests, meticulous care of interior decorations, with mosaics in the bathrooms, coffered ceilings, copper boilers, kitchens with marble sinks, intercoms and garages. Anyone reading this list and thinking it's ordinary administration forgets which years we're talking about: the intercom and the garage, in the Rome of the 1920s, were pure luxury.

The building at Via Olona 7

It dates from around 1925 and has an L-shaped plan. The facade is divided into four projecting bodies: the central body rises over five floors, the side ones over four. On the top floor and around the balconies run geometric decorations. It's one of the buildings where you feel the cooling of the language compared with the Villini delle Fate, and it's worth looking at precisely for the comparison: same hand, different temperature.

The villino at Via Brenta 26

It houses the Amedeo Avogadro state science high school. The building is divided into two levels and to the right of the facade opens the entrance with loggia. On the first floor a mosaic depicts a rooster, a cup and three dice with the numbers one, three and five. The dice mosaic is my favorite detail of the whole district, because it's the only one that openly declares chance: in a complex built by a man who controlled every centimeter, someone wanted to put three already-thrown dice on the facade.

The villino at Via Ombrone 7

The building has a quadrilateral plan and is articulated over two levels plus a semi-basement. The first level is rusticated, while at the attic level run reliefs depicting bees. The bees return throughout the district, on the Villini delle Fate as here, and are not a mere naturalistic ornament. In the Roman repertoire the bee is the emblem of the Barberini, which makes it a Baroque quotation. In the general symbolic repertoire it is the animal of collective industriousness, and so a close relative of the spider of the palazzo in Piazza Mincio.

The villino at Via Ombrone 8

The building has two levels plus a semi-basement and presents, on the left, a small loggia. It's among the most sober of the complex and precisely for this useful: it shows the structure under the decoration, that is how Coppedè solved the plan of a bourgeois villino when he didn't have to amaze anyone.

The villino at Via Ombrone 11

The building has a quadrangular plan and is divided into two floors plus a semi-basement. The exteriors present several types of rustication, while the windows are arched with decorations of coats of arms. The variety of rustication on a single front is an exercise in technical virtuosity: they are different stone cuts, with different shadow effects, mounted on the same wall to obtain a surface that vibrates.

The building at Via Olona 2

It houses offices of the Polish representation in Rome. On the right side appears a hunting scene, while on the loggia ovals with doves alternate with an oval with Saint George. Coppedè's authorship of this building is considered doubtful by scholars: it should therefore be treated as an uncertain attribution and not as a documented work of the master. Whoever looks at it carefully notices a drier hand, less inclined to decorative crowding.

What the houses inside Coppedè are like

The interiors can't be visited, but knowing how they're made changes the way you look at the facades. Travertine was chosen for the exteriors in homage to the Romanness imposed by the building commission. Inside, instead, the repertoire changes completely: glazed majolica for the kitchens, wood parquet for the living rooms, Pompeian-style mosaics for the bathrooms. The living spaces were separated from the private rooms almost to form, according to the definition of the time, "reception quarters" and "sanctuaries of private life".

That distinction is the truly modern content of the project. The 19th-century bourgeois house was an enfilade of rooms that you crossed one after another. Here the plan sharply separates the public part of the dwelling from the intimate one, and does so 20 years before it became normal in Italy. The Pompeian mosaic in the bathroom, then, says how recent the conquest of the bathroom as an autonomous room worthy of decoration was: a century earlier it didn't exist at all.

Coppedè at the movies

Because of its out-of-scale architecture the district very early became a set. The best-documented case is Inferno, shot by Dario Argento in 1980, second chapter of the Three Mothers trilogy begun with Suspiria in 1977 and inspired by Thomas De Quincey's Suspiria de profundis: the dwelling of Mater Lacrimarum is a building in the Coppedè district, while the New York settings were entirely rebuilt at Cinecittà. The soundtrack is by Keith Emerson. Anyone arriving at Piazza Mincio knowing the film immediately recognizes the shots, and understands why Argento needed exactly this place: he needed an architecture that looked real and wasn't quite.

The filmography tied to the district is longer, though, and has to be handled with some caution, because among the titles enthusiasts cite there are attributions not always verifiable. Recalled there are The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, directorial debut of Argento himself released on February 19, 1970 with Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, Enrico Maria Salerno and Eva Renzi, whose Roman exteriors were shot largely in the Flaminio district, around Via Donatello. The Omen by Richard Donner from 1976, which opens its story in Rome before moving to London. The Perfume of the Lady in Black, a 1974 noir directed by Francesco Barilli and released on March 29 of that year. And Il cielo in una stanza by Carlo Vanzina. In Piazza Mincio, in short, you walk inside an imaginary that Italian genre cinema helped build as much as the architect did.

On the theme, those who want to go deeper into the relationship between Rome and the seventh art will find material at the Casa del Cinema, inside Villa Borghese.

A curiosity about Coppedè

The best curiosity concerns a date and a refusal. In 1920 the building commission rejected the construction of the Villini delle Fate on Via Rubicone. The project everyone photographs today, the one with Dante and Petrarch, the lion of Saint Mark and the zodiacal clock, had been conceived for a different street from the one it stands on: only after the refusal did the Fairies emigrate toward Via Aterno, Piazza Mincio and Via Brenta, where we see them. The district's masterpiece is therefore the result of a bureaucratic no, which should console anyone who has ever had a file stuck at the registry.

It's not the only case in which bureaucracy rewrote the project. In February 1918 the Palazzi degli Ambasciatori were approved on the condition that the diagonal street, today's Via Dora, become a private street: without that clause the monumental arch could not have spanned it and the most theatrical entrance of 20th-century Rome simply would not exist. And in 1917, as seen, it was again the commission that imposed the Roman stamp that led to the travertine and the great arch of triumphal taste.

The real curiosity, then, is this: the district that passes for the whim of a visionary architect is actually the product of a long negotiation between a stubborn designer, a real estate company that had to sell apartments and a municipal commission that said no. Three parties nobody ever puts in the same sentence with the word fairy tale. Whoever walks under the arch believes he's looking at a dream. He's looking at a successful compromise, which is a much rarer thing.

Something nobody tells you about Coppedè

That Coppedè is not Liberty. The mental label almost everyone sticks on it, Liberty district of Rome, is convenient and wrong. Italian Liberty, that is the home version of Art Nouveau, works on continuous curved lines, stylized plant motifs, iron and glass, and has its moment between the end of the 19th century and the very early 1910s. Here instead the syntax is another: medieval mullioned and four-light windows, Renaissance rustication, 15th-century Florentine graffiti, lions of Saint Mark, imperial Roman frames, Baroque masks. It's historicist eclecticism, that is the conscious montage of different historical repertoires, and it arrives when in Europe Liberty had already gone out of fashion.

The practical consequence is that at Coppedè you have to look differently from how you look at a Milanese or Palermitan Liberty house. Don't look for the flowing line: look for the quotation. Every element comes from a precise elsewhere, and the game is to recognize it. Andrea del Castagno's Legnaia cycle for the figures in the mullioned windows, the Turtle Fountain for the fountain, the triumphal arches of the Forums for the great arch, the Barberini bees for the reliefs, the Holy Grail for the cup on the third floor.

There's also a second fact rarely told: none of this was built for tourism or for culture. The Società Anonima Edilizia Moderna had to sell luxury apartments in a peripheral area with no history, and Coppedè built the only thing that could give that void an immediate identity: an invented past. It worked then and still works, which is the best lesson in urban marketing Rome has to offer.

My advice for visiting Coppedè

Do the loop in reverse. 95 percent of visitors enter from Via Tagliamento, pass under the arch, arrive in Piazza Mincio, photograph the fountain and leave: 20 minutes, and the district remains practically unexplored. It's better to enter from Via Ombrone or Via Olona, that is from the back, where the villini are more sober and the scale is domestic, and walk the complex going up toward Piazza Mincio. This way you'll see the arch at the end and from the inside, which is the shot architecture photographers look for and almost no tourist takes.

Second piece of advice, on time. An honest tour of Coppedè takes at least 40 minutes, and an hour and a quarter if you want to really read the facades of the Villini delle Fate. Bring light binoculars or use your phone's zoom: half the decorative program is on the second floor and at attic level, out of reach of the naked eye. The figures in the mullioned windows, the three dice of the villino at Via Brenta 26, the bees of the attic at Via Ombrone 7 and the masks of the fountain are all lost if you don't go looking for them.

Third piece of advice, the one nobody will give you. Don't organize a visit here with a big group speaking loudly. Coppedè is inhabited, the streets are narrow, the echo between the facades is notable and residents have lived for years with a continuous flow of visitors. A group of 10 people speaking quietly is welcome. 40 people with a megaphone are a nuisance. And if you want a coffee, know that you won't find it inside the complex: the bars are on Via Tagliamento and on Viale Regina Margherita.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely cited

That the district is unfinished. Everyone knows it and almost nobody says it, because it ruins the postcard. The plan of the work provided for 18 palazzi and 27 between palazzine and villini. Gino Coppedè died on September 20, 1927 and the complex was left interrupted, with completion entrusted to Paolo Emilio André. What is admired today as an organic whole is actually an amputated project, brought to completion by another hand and at another temperature.

This explains several things the visitor notices without being able to explain. It explains why the decorative intensity drops sharply moving away from Piazza Mincio, why some fronts on Via Olona and Via Ombrone seem tossed off compared with the Villini delle Fate, why the complex has no concluding front on the side opposite the arch. Coppedè had built the business card and was working on the rest when the pulmonary gangrene stopped him.

There's also a second incompleteness, of a different nature. The sources don't even agree on the birth date of the project: the architectural dictionary of Pevsner, Fleming and Honour gives 1912, the first documented presentation is from October 19, 1916, the commission from the financiers Cerruti and Becchi dates to 1915. On a work from a century ago, built by a private company and not by a public body, this documentary fog is normal, and it should be said: whoever tells you the story of Coppedè with peremptory dates to the exact day is rounding. The honest form is the cautious one, with the span of years 1915-1927 as the frame and the precise dates reserved for facts the documents support.

The right photo to take at Coppedè

The photo everyone takes is the fountain in Piazza Mincio with the buildings in the background, and it's a dead photo: too much sky, too much square, a small subject in the center. The right photo is another one, and it has to be sought under the arch on Via Dora. You line up with the wrought-iron chandelier, lower the point of view, keep the chandelier high at a third of the frame and let the inner face of the arch, with the winged Victory and the mosaics of the eagles, occupy the upper part. The background fills with the glimpse of Piazza Mincio that opens beyond. In a single image enter the wrought iron, the painting, the mosaic and the square, that is the whole district.

The best light for this shot is first thing in the morning, when the sun comes in low from the east and lights up the underside of the arch without blowing out the square behind it. In the middle hours of the day, the contrast between the shadow of the arch and the full sun of the square is unmanageable for any sensor, and the result is a black chandelier on a white background.

The second photo to take home, the one nobody has, is a detail: the spider above the main door at Piazza Mincio 4, isolated, zoomed in, without context. It works because it's unreadable until you know what it is, and then it becomes memorable. Those with patience can add the mosaic of the rooster, the cup and the three dice at the villino at Via Brenta 26 and the figures in the two-light windows of Via Aterno: three details are worth more than 10 wide shots. One recommendation, though, on which I don't compromise: never photograph inside the windows. The houses are lived in, and the residents' right to privacy comes before any shot.

Some important events that happened here in history

The first event is administrative and seems boring, but it's the one that made everything else possible: the approval of the master plan by engineer Edmondo Sanjust di Teulada in 1909, under Mayor Ernesto Nathan. That plan designated the area for palazzine and villini and paved the way for the real estate operation that the Società Anonima Edilizia Moderna launched in 1915.

The second is the building commission's request of August 23, 1917: to give the neighborhood a Roman imprint. It's the moment when a public institution steps in on the taste of a private project, and the travertine of the facades is its direct consequence.

The third is from February 1918, with the approval of the Palazzi degli Ambasciatori conditional on the privatization of Via Dora. The fourth is 1920, with the rejection of the Villini delle Fate on Via Rubicone and the resulting move of the project to the current streets. The fifth is 1921, the year the Palazzi degli Ambasciatori are completed, as confirmed by the inscription "Anno Domini MCMXXI" on the corner turret on Via Tagliamento. The sixth is 1924, when the Fountain of the Frogs is built.

The seventh is September 20, 1927, the death of Gino Coppedè in Rome, which leaves the neighborhood unfinished and hands its completion to Paolo Emilio André. The eighth belongs to another era and is February 17, 1965, the opening of the Piper Club on Via Tagliamento, right across from the entrance to the neighborhood: from that moment the Coppedè block finds itself, without having sought it, at the center of the nightlife of beat-era Rome. The ninth is 1980, with the filming of Inferno by Dario Argento, which hands the neighborhood over to the international horror imagination. The 10th is June 13, 2012, with the opening of the Sant'Agnese/Annibaliano station of the B1, which for the first time connects the area to the subway network.

Who has passed through Coppedè

The most famous resident is Beniamino Gigli, the tenor from the Marche who had his Roman home in one of the villas of the neighborhood. Gigli was one of the best-known Italian voices of the 20th century, and his presence here says exactly what kind of clientele the Società Anonima Edilizia Moderna was looking for: professionals, established artists, a rising upper middle class, people who could afford an apartment with a garage and an intercom in the 1920s.

Then there are the diplomats, who gave their name to the Palazzi degli Ambasciatori and who still frequent the area: the South African embassy is on Via Tanaro, those of Morocco and Bolivia are on Via Brenta, and at Via Olona 2 there are offices of the Polish representation. Walking these streets means running into plaques, flags and cars with diplomatic plates, which adds to the neighborhood an atmosphere of discretion that no other area of Rome has in the same way.

On the film front, the best-documented passage is Dario Argento's, who in 1980 shot part of Inferno here, making a building of the neighborhood the home of the Mater Lacrimarum. Before him, the neighborhood had already attracted genre directors: the name of Francesco Barilli is linked to The Perfume of the Lady in Black from 1974, that of Richard Donner to The Omen from 1976, that of Carlo Vanzina to Il cielo in una stanza. These are appearances that enthusiasts have cited for decades and that built the place's unsettling reputation.

Finally the Beatles, who maybe really passed through and maybe didn't. Tradition has them in the basin of the Fountain of the Frogs after an evening at the Piper, in 1965. The Piper existed, it was a short walk away, the era is right. Documents confirming the bath don't exist, and so the story has to be kept in its place: urban legend, told with a smile, not passed off as fact. That it was invented right here, after all, is consistent with a neighborhood built by an architect who invented the past for a living.

What to see around Coppedè within a 10-minute walk

The complex is done in three quarters of an hour, so it's worth fitting it into a longer route. A few minutes away, along Via Nomentana, is Villa Torlonia with the Casina delle Civette, which in decorative taste is Coppedè's older and more refined cousin: polychrome stained glass, majolica, carved wood. Anyone who really wants to understand Roman eclecticism should see the two in the same morning, in that order.

Going up Via Salaria you reach the Catacombs of Priscilla, one of the most important early Christian cemetery complexes in the city, and farther on opens Villa Ada, the big park of this part of Rome. To the west, beyond Viale Regina Margherita, you go down to the Flaminio neighborhood, where the MAXXI and the Auditorium Parco della Musica tell the story of contemporary architecture with the same ambition with which Coppedè told the story of the past. The Galleria Borghese is a quarter of an hour away by public transit, and the comparison between the fountains of Piazza Mincio and the Bernini sculptures of the collection closes the day well.

If instead you want to check for yourselves the declaration of Roman character imposed by the building commission in 1917, go see the originals that Coppedè was citing, that is the imperial arches and cornices of Trajan's Markets: looking at the imitation after looking at the model is an exercise that clears everything up.

Coppedè with children

It's one of the few Roman stops that really works with children, and the reason is mundane: there's nothing to read, nothing to respect in silence and nothing to pay for. You walk in the street, look for animals on the facades and you win. The game that always works is the hunt for stone animals: the spider at Piazza Mincio 4, the frogs of the fountain, the winged lion on Via Brenta, the eagle, the she-wolf with the twins, the biscione in the coat of arms, the bees of the attic on Via Ombrone, the rooster of the mosaic at Via Brenta 26, the sailing ship, the falcon of the falconer, the doves at Via Olona 2. That's 11 targets, enough to keep an eight-year-old busy for the whole visit.

Watch out for two things. The first is traffic: Piazza Mincio and Via Dora have cars driving on them, the sidewalks are narrow and there is no pedestrian zone, so the little ones need to be held by the hand. The second is water: the Fountain of the Frogs is not for swimming and the lower basin is a few centimeters from street level, so it's very easy for a child to end up in it with one shoe.

Accessibility at Coppedè

The complex is flat and that's its good fortune: anyone getting around in a wheelchair or with a stroller meets no staircases or significant slopes, and the whole route runs on urban streets and sidewalks. The critical points are elsewhere: the sidewalks in some stretches of Via Dora and Via Aterno are narrow and parked cars narrow them further, so you sometimes have to step down into the roadway. Curb ramps at the crossings exist but aren't uniform.

The Sant'Agnese/Annibaliano station of the B1 is a modern station, equipped with elevators, but for the equipment in service on the day of your visit it's always worth checking beforehand on the transit company's website, because elevator breakdowns in Rome's subways are frequent. Sitting, on the other hand, is a serious problem: in Piazza Mincio there are no benches and there is no café on the square. Those who need planned breaks should base themselves on Via Tagliamento, where there are places.

Frequently asked questions about Coppedè

How much does it cost to enter Coppedè?

Entry to Coppedè costs nothing, because the neighborhood is made up of municipal streets open to the public and you walk it freely, with no ticket, no reservation and no opening hours. What you can't do is go into the buildings, which remain private homes.

Is Coppedè a real neighborhood of Rome?

Coppedè is not a neighborhood in the administrative sense of the term, but a private building complex built inside the Trieste neighborhood, Q. XVII, established on May 24, 1926 with the name Savoia. The name Coppedè came from the common usage of Romans, who christened the block with the surname of the architect who designed it.

How do you get to Coppedè and how long does it take to visit?

Coppedè is in the Trieste neighborhood of Rome, near Piazza Buenos Aires, between the Salario and Parioli neighborhoods. Visiting takes about three quarters of an hour, just the right time to combine it with other stops in the area, such as Villa Torlonia with the Casina delle Civette along Via Nomentana.

Who was Gino Coppedè, the architect of the neighborhood?

Gino Coppedè, born Luigi Coppedè, was born in Florence on September 26, 1866 and died in Rome on September 20, 1927. In 1915 he was commissioned by the Società Anonima Edilizia Moderna to design the new Roman residential complex that today bears his name, left unfinished at his death and completed by the architect Paolo Emilio André.

Is Coppedè suitable for an outing with children?

Coppedè is one of the few Roman stops that works well with children, because there's nothing to read or pay for and you simply walk in the street. An effective game is the hunt for the stone animals carved on the facades: the spider at Piazza Mincio 4, the frogs of the fountain, the winged lion on Via Brenta.

Is Coppedè accessible with a wheelchair or a stroller?

Coppedè is flat, so anyone getting around in a wheelchair or with a stroller meets no staircases or significant slopes along the municipal streets of the complex. The critical points are the narrow sidewalks in some stretches of Via Dora and Via Aterno, narrowed further by parked cars.

What is the Fountain of the Frogs at Coppedè?

The Fountain of the Frogs is the public work at the center of Piazza Mincio, designed and built by Gino Coppedè in 1924. It's the only part of the complex that belongs to everyone, while the surrounding buildings remain private, and a large part of the life of the square is organized around it.

Is Coppedè considered a Liberty neighborhood?

No, calling Coppedè a Liberty neighborhood of Rome is a convenient but imprecise label. Italian Liberty works with continuous curved lines, stylized plant motifs, iron and glass, while at Coppedè the architectural syntax combines medieval two-light and four-light windows with decorative elements of different inspiration.

Why Coppedè is worth the detour

Rome has a flaw nobody admits: it saturates. After three days of imperial marble and Baroque domes the eye stops distinguishing, and on the fourth day everything looks the same. Coppedè is the antidote, because it breaks the sequence. It isn't ancient, it isn't sacred, it isn't famous, it has no ticket office and it doesn't appear on the list of the 10 places to see. It's a piece of city built by a man who came from his father's workshop and who convinced a real estate company to let him play with 18 buildings.

For those who organize group trips, then, it's a valuable card: free, always open, immune to museum strikes, with an immediate visual impact and a story to tell that requires no prior knowledge. Those who want to build a tailor-made Roman itinerary, or be accompanied by a professional who knows these streets one by one, will find the right structure in TourLeaderPro, and in particular on the contacts page for a direct request. Those who instead travel in English or accompany foreign friends can lean on ItalyPlanner's guide to things to do in Rome and its three-day itinerary, which fit a detour like this well into an already full program.

Quick questions about Coppedè

How much does it cost to enter Coppedè?

Nothing. Coppedè is made up of public streets and you walk it freely, with no ticket, no reservation and no opening hours.

Is Coppedè a neighborhood of Rome?

Not in the administrative sense. It's a private building complex built inside the Trieste neighborhood, Q. XVII, established on May 24, 1926 with the name Savoia. The name Coppedè came from common usage.

How long does it take to visit Coppedè?

40 minutes for a proper walk, an hour and a quarter if you want to read the facades of the Villini delle Fate in detail.

Can you visit the interiors of the buildings at Coppedè?

No. All the properties are private and lived in. Entrance halls, courtyards and stairs are not accessible and there are no guided tours of the interiors.

How do you get to Coppedè by subway?

With the B1 branch of line B, Sant'Agnese/Annibaliano stop, opened on June 13, 2012, and then on foot toward Via Tagliamento.

Where exactly is the entrance to Coppedè?

Under the big arch that spans Via Dora between the two Palazzi degli Ambasciatori, on Via Tagliamento side, at numbers 8-12.

Who designed Coppedè?

Gino Coppedè, a Florentine architect born on September 26, 1866 and died in Rome on September 20, 1927. The completion is by Paolo Emilio André.

When was the Coppedè neighborhood built?

The commission dates to 1915, the first official presentation of the project to October 19, 1916, the Palazzi degli Ambasciatori to 1921 and the Fountain of the Frogs to 1924. The construction site remained unfinished at the architect's death in 1927.

How many buildings is Coppedè made up of?

The plan called for 18 palazzi and 27 palazzine and buildings, arranged around the central core of Piazza Mincio.

Is Coppedè in the Liberty style?

It's called that for convenience, but the language is that of historicist eclecticism: medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and imperial Roman elements put together, not the continuous curved lines of Art Nouveau.

How many frogs are there in the Fountain of the Frogs?

12: four resting on the shells held up by the pairs of figures of the lower basin and eight on the rim of the upper bowl, about two meters high.

Is it true that the Beatles bathed in the Fountain of the Frogs?

It's an urban legend tied to the Piper Club on Via Tagliamento, opened on February 17, 1965 across from the neighborhood. No documents confirming it turn up.

Why is it called Palazzo del Ragno?

For the big spider-shaped decoration placed above the main door, at Piazza Mincio 4. The building dates from 1916 to 1926.

What are the Villini delle Fate?

The group of buildings at Via Aterno 4, Piazza Mincio 3 and Via Brenta 7-11, decorated with paintings and graffiti dedicated to Florence, Venice and Rome: it's the most elaborate part of the neighborhood.

Can you take photos at Coppedè?

Yes, from public streets. Avoid photographing inside windows and doorways: the houses are lived in and the privacy of residents must be respected.

Is Coppedè wheelchair accessible?

The route is flat and has no staircases, but some sidewalks are narrow and taken up by parked cars, and the curb ramps at the crossings are not uniform.

What is the best time to visit Coppedè?

First thing in the morning or the last hour of light: low light brings out the graffiti and bas-reliefs that overhead sun flattens. Avoid early afternoon in summer.

Are there bars or restrooms inside Coppedè?

No. There are no cafés or restrooms inside the complex: the bars are on Via Tagliamento and on Viale Regina Margherita.

Which films were shot at Coppedè?

The best-documented case is Inferno by Dario Argento from 1980, where a building of the neighborhood is the home of the Mater Lacrimarum. Enthusiasts also link The Perfume of the Lady in Black, The Omen and Il cielo in una stanza to the neighborhood.

Is Coppedè good for children?

Very much. The hunt for the animals carved and painted on the facades, from the spider to the frogs to the winged lion, works better than any audio guide. Keep an eye on the car traffic.

What is the difference between Coppedè and the Casina delle Civette?

The Casina delle Civette, inside Villa Torlonia, is a noble residence you can visit with a ticket and with preserved interiors. Coppedè is a private residential complex that you see only from the outside, for free.

Is it worth visiting Coppedè in the evening?

Yes, for the lighting of the arch and the wrought-iron chandelier, which has a notable effect at night. The decorations of the facades, however, can't be read in the evening.

One last piece of advice: don't treat Coppedè as a photo to tick off. Stop for five minutes standing next to the fountain without a phone in your hand and look at one building at a time, from the bottom up. It's the only way to notice that no window is the same as another, and when you notice, the neighborhood changes nature before your eyes: it stops being a cute oddity and becomes what it is, the stubborn work of a man who never accepted repeating himself.

Article written by the editorial team of TourLeaderPro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.

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