Ristorante Romolo La Fornarina

The local

 
La Fornarina
(Raffaello Sanzio 1518-1519 circa)
Oil on wood – 85×60 cm
National Gallery of Ancient Art
Palazzo Barberini – Rome

In the heart of Trastevere there’s an enchanted
courtyard where Raffaello used to flirt with and
portray Margherita Luti, the lovely “Fornarina”
he had fallen for. Romolo Casali opened his
restaurant in that very same courtyard. (Paolo Di Giannantonio, Sapori colti, Skira, 2009).

In 1930 Romolo Casali takes over the historic tavern which, according to tradition, had belonged to the “Fornarina” ’s father. The restaurant becomes famous for its excellent traditional Roman cuisine perfected and personalised by Romolo and because Trilussa, the most beloved Roman poet of the twentieth century, has his own permanent table here, as an inscription in the restaurant reminds us. The restaurant becomes the haunt of journalists, writers, historians, experts on all things Roman like Ceccarius, all of whom leave their comments in the guestbook.

The monument to Trilussa
in the square in Trastevere named after him
just a few metres from Romolo.

From the 1950s to the 1970s Romolo’s son Tonino works alongside his father. Tonino is a well-read young man who is interested in all the arts, not just culinary arts. He and his father promote art exhibitions and awards, cultural events and meetings that attract the beautiful people. These are the Hollywood on the Tiber and Dolce Vita years. The garden of the Fornarina establishesitself as the regular meeting place of painters and models, writers and poets, and also actors and singers,
journalists and designers, historians and art critics: Joan Mirò and Renato Guttuso, Jean Cocteau and Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas and Maria Callas, Tyron Power and Linda Christian, Palma Bucarelli and Lorenza Trucchi, the Fontana sisters and Mino Maccari, and also Massimo Campigli, Miriam Mafai, Franca Valeri, Brigitte Bardot and Giuliano Gemma. Poets like Sandro Penna, Leonardo Sinisgalli
and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and even royalty, like
Queen Fabiola of Belgium, were also regulars at
Romolo.
Above, from top to bottom: Tonino Casali greets Palma Bucarelli, who ran the National Gallery of Modern Art from World War II until 1975;

counting the votes during the first art award,
promoted by Romolo and the Fontana Sisters
fashion house in 1958, and won by Renzo
Vespignani: the works were then exhibited in
New York in the halls of the Plaza.

Tonino does the honours.

 

From the left: at Romolo in 1953, Jean Cocteau
and Lorenza Trucchi, cultural journalist and
art critic who for many years was the President
of the Rome Quadriennale;
above: a moment during the opening of the
“Sala della Fornarina” exhibition in the 1960s,
with Luciano Luisi who is interviewing Domenico Purificato, the movie actor Antonio Cifariello and, on the far right, the writer and critic Ugo Moretti.
Among those who exhibited: Corrado Cagli, Riccardo Francalancia, Franco Gentilini, Emilio Greco, Renato Guttuso, Mario Mafai, Luigi Montanarini, Giovanni Omiccioli, Domenico Purificato, Alberto Ziveri; opposite: Brigitte Bardot, who loved going into Romolo’s kitchen to learn Roman recipes, and Giuliano Gemma.

Romolo’s son is also a modern-day patron of the arts, and young, penniless artists turn to him to exhibit their work, sell their paintings and, of course, eat. This is the bohemian generation who live and work in the area between Via della Lungara and Via Garibaldi in Trastevere, those stirred by the great Spanish poet Rafael Alberti.

In the late 1970s Bernardo Bertolucci, a longstanding inhabitant and lover of Trastevere,
chooses Romolo as the setting for an important
scene in ‘La Luna’ starring Jill Clayburgh.
Yet more strong passions and art in the garden
of the Fornarina.

At the end of the 1970s Tonino’s sister Marisa
takes over as manager of the restaurant. With
her, two great dynasties of Roman restaurateurs merge: her husband, Angelino Biasciucci (Angelino of Tor Margana), is the promoter and life and soul of the Tor Marganache Award in the 1960s and is one of the pivotal figures of Rome’s cultural life.

In recent years Marisa Casali has worked with her daughter Vittoria Biasciucci, who shares her father’s and her uncle’s passion. Thanks to family tradition and its history as an art gallery,  the garden of the Fornarina is again the setting for exhibitions, art events and cultural happenings.