Vespa Tunes II - Roma Capoccia, Antonello Venditti, 1972
Antonello Venditti was present at the first proper date I went on with my husband. We had met at a party (that’s how long ago it was) the day before AS Roma last won the scudetto (that’s also how long ago it was). In a piece of synchronicity which would be laboured were it not true, the day of that last match of the season I gave my first full tour through the traffic-less streets of a baking Sunday afternoon in mid June. Towards the end of the tour a communal roar erupted from a thousand apartments, and as we crossed the Lungotevere at Ponte Sisto a swarm of flags and honking scooters went screaming by. The horns didn’t stop for over a week. All things considered it was a fairly momentous weekend.
A week later a celebratory free concert was held at the Circus Maximus. According to numbers estimated by the police 1.8 million people were there, the largest crowd for any concert ever in Italy. It was a joyous, chaotic affair. Massimo whisked me to a strategic spot on the ridge above the throng on his Yamaha and we watched the show orchestrated by Antonello Venditti, Romanista par excellence and author of the inno della Roma (the AS Roma anthem, written in 1974). He is so profoundly, fundamentally Roman that he even features, as himself, in Sorrentino’s 2013 movie La Grande Bellezza (in a scene featuring the splendid Sabrina Ferilli who also participated in the concert by stripping to a bikini accompanied by men in she-wolf costumes complete with teats. Rome is just Fellini wherever you look).
Of the many paeans to Rome in Venditti’s oeuvre, my favourite and the one I’m most likely to be singing on my Vespa is Roma Capoccia. Rome was once called caput mundi, the head of the world. In Italian capo means “head”, in Roman dialect capoccia. I suppose in English an equivalent might be “noggin”. So Roma Capoccia is a sentimental, glorious love song to the city that was once caput mundi, and which every Roman knows without doubt is the most beautiful in the world.
On that hot June evening we stayed for some of Venditti’s songs, including Roma Capoccia. He was accompanied on the piano by fellow Romanista Nicola Piovani, winner of the Oscar for Best Original Score for La Vita è Bella. Here’s a link to the chaotic Circus Maximus version. Then we left what the city police estimated at 1.8 million Roma fans to it and scootered through the streets of Rome to a pizza next to the Mausoleum of Augustus.
Three years later, to the day, we were married in striking distance from the Circus Maximus, and began our wedding reception with bubbles and snacks at the Roseto Comunale where Max had parked his bike the day the Circus Maximus played host to the single busiest event in its twenty-six centuries, the last time la Roma won the scudetto.
Quanto sei bella Roma quand'è sera
Quando la luna se specchia dentro ar fontanone
E le coppiette se ne vanno via
Quanto sei bella Roma quando piove
Rome you’re so beautiful when it’s evening
When the moon reflects in the Fontanone1,
And the couples go home.
Rome you’re so beautiful when it rains
Quanto sei grande Roma quand'è er tramonto
Quando l'arancia rosseggia ancora sui sette colli
E le finestre so' tanti occhi
Che te sembrano di' quanto sei bella
Quanto sei bella
How great you are, Rome, when it’s sunset
When the orange light still blushes across the seven hills
And the windows are so many eyes
That seem to say how beautiful you are
How beautiful you are
Oggi me sembra che er tempo se sia fermato qui
Vedo la maestà der Colosseo
Vedo la santità der cupolone
E so' più vivo e so' più bbono
No nun te lasso mai
Roma capoccia der mondo infame
Roma capoccia der mondo infame
Today it feels like time has stopped here
I see the majesty of the Colosseum
I see the holiness of the cupolone2,
And I’m more alive and I’m a better person
No, I’ll never leave you
Roma capoccia of the vile world
Roma capoccia of the vile world
Na carrozzella va co du stranieri
Un robivecchi te chiede un po' de stracci
Li passeracci so' usignoli
Io ce so' nato a Roma
Io t'ho scoperta stamattina
Io t'ho scoperta
A carriage goes by with two tourists
A rag and bone man asks for some old clothes
The sparrows sing like nightingales
I was born in Rome
I discovered you this morning
I discovered you
Oggi me sembra che er tempo se sia fermato qui
Vedo la maestà der Colosseo
Vedo la santità der cupolone
E so' più vivo e so' più bbono
No nun te lasso mai
Roma capoccia der mondo infame
Roma capoccia der mondo infame
Today it feels like time has stopped here
I see the majesty of the Colosseum
I see the holiness of the cupolone
And I’m more alive and I’m a better person
No, I’ll never leave you
Roma capoccia of the vile world
Roma capoccia of the vile world
lit. “big fountain”, what Romans call the Fountain of the Aqua Paola on the Janiculum Hill.
lit. ”big dome”, what Romans call the dome of St Peter’s. In Rome it is correctly pronounced with approximately half a dozen “p”s: Romans tend to turn double consonants into single ones and single ones to multiples.
I'd always meant to find out who he was (restaurant scene?), but then I'd get lost in the film again (many times), and forget. Hang around long enough and the answers find you.
❤💕