Part I - Home to the Convent

In my teens, I envisioned a career as an archaeologist. I was intrigued by the remnants of civilizations and their revelations about the rise and fall of ancient cultures and beliefs. Tucked in a library cubicle, absorbed in a book illustrated with photographs of faded frescoes and marble monuments, I would lose myself in the past, where all lives had been resolved. In a way, it made me feel safe: history held harsh lessons, but naively, I thought we’d learned them. 

 

In the fall of 1973, I left behind the ruins pictured in books and flew to Rome to explore them.  With Dave and 44 other students, in the midst of a cholera outbreak and with terrorist violence on the horizon, I arrived in Italy to attend Trinity College Rome Campus (TCRC). 

 

The program was housed in the convent of the Suore Camaldolesi, a walled enclosure on the Aventine Hill. The nuns were cloistered, unseen, but their faith was evident in crucifixes above the beds in every sparely furnished room; an admonishment, no doubt, to discourage anything but sleep in those beds. The crucifix was disconcerting, and so were the sopping towels and wads of wet paper that had once been toilet tissue: bathrooms in the dorm offered sinks, toilets without seats, and shower heads, but no stall. Important to remember: remove dry items before spraying water.  

 

My second-floor room overlooked a courtyard bordered in a U-configuration by the dorm, a classroom, and a wall, the dividing line between the school and the grounds of the convent. Palm tree fronds, rose-tinted stucco, and the red-tiled roof of the nuns’ living quarters were visible, but, for the most part, the land beyond the wall was as mysterious as the lives of the women who had chosen that seclusion. 

 

We were given some cautions early on. While it was hoped the crucifixes would keep the American boys in line, we girls were drilled in saying Lasciami stare, or “Leave me be,” to deter aggressive Italian men. And, while we’d been required to have a battery of vaccinations before departure, we were warned not to eat seafood due to cholera concerns. 

 

Ah, the food. I was raised on basic ‘50’s American fare – hamburgers, meat loaf, Minute rice, potatoes, canned Le Sueur vegetables, and Cheerios or Captain Crunch for breakfast. My mother’s recipe for spaghetti sauce was browned ground beef with a can of tomato paste stirred into the drippings. It was yummy, but the meals at the convent were… what? How to adequately describe the leap in my gustatory experience from meat loaf to the divinely-inspired bacon and cheese blend in pasta carbonara? The fresh smell of summer in basil pesto? The richness of risotto infused with the earthy flavor of mushrooms? And at breakfast, a crusty roll laden with chocolate Nutella scooped from a great vat. I figured, who knows when I’ll get food like this again? I consumed seconds and thirds… and gained ten pounds. 

 

Eventually, a group of us pried ourselves away from the convent to try dinner at a restaurant. Few spoke Italian, and while most menus in 2022 include English translations, that was not the case in ’73. We’d learned the phrase for “what is this?” and when Dave pointed to an item, fegatini di pollo, and asked, “Cos’é questo,” the server thumped his chest with both hands and clucked. Okay. Chicken breast. Sounds good. Frank, Dave’s roommate at Trinity, took a chance and ordered “Fritto Misto di Mare.” I played it safe and ordered lasagna.   

 

Such a good choice. My dish was set before me, a vision of delicate pasta layered with creamy pink tomato sauce and just the right amount of cheese. Dave looked suspiciously at his plate. Hm. Apparently “fegatini” meant livers, with a few hearts and kidneys thrown in. And Frank’s? A generous portion of fried seafood. There was momentary silence at the table and then a burst of laughter as, Cholera be damned, Frank shrugged and took a bite. Well, if he was going down, we all would, and each of us reached over and speared a forkful. 

 

The first weeks of the program were a giddy blur of exhaustion and excitement as we explored our surroundings. The Colosseum and Forum were within walking distance, and just down the hill, where chariots once raced, the boys played football in the Circus Maximus. We sampled billowy gelato, plenty of wine, and decided American pizza didn’t come close to the original.  We visited catacombs, museums, and the Capuchin chapels decorated with the bones of 4000 monks. We stood in awe before Michelangelo’s Pieta in Saint Peter’s. Together, we experienced art, the sacred, the ancient, and the new: the wonder of a world opened through travel.   

 

This September, almost 50 years later, 17 of us, some accompanied by spouses and adult kids, returned to Rome and the convent. 

 

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In 1973, Umberto Todini, introduced us to the work of directors Frederico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, and Roberto Rosellini and the brooding power of Italian Neo-Realismo films. In 2019, our former professor traveled from Rome to Rhode Island to join us for a reunion among friend Lise’s artful gardens, fountains, and driftwood sculptures. It was there he insisted, “Next time, you must come to Rome!”

 

Everyone agreed it was a great idea, but really, what were the odds? Yet, in 2020, initial plans were made, and then, Covid changed everything. So, there was a sense of the surreal as we gathered last month at La Panella, Umberto’s favorite restaurant, in Rome. 

 

Allowing for changes in hair color and a few lines about the face, we all looked the same… didn’t we? Some had remained close, but for others, half a century had passed since we’d scrambled the dark corridors of the Mithraeum, marveled at the Monks’ bones of the Capuchin Monastery, harvested grapes, and dodged persistent Italian boys together. All those twenty-year old kids united again in Rome. 

 

As Umberto voiced in his welcome, “The fact that we are here means something by itself: memories, connections, fidelity to the experience, and the desire for knowledge… and for Rome.” He used the word “revival” rather than reunion, and as conversation buzzed around the table over beautiful bread baskets, wine, and canapés, indeed, the word applied. Nicknames from ‘73 resurfaced: Romala, FaPoco, Donovano, Francobolli, Bartolemeo, and Davido, and in the days that followed, we revived, as well, our roles as students and co-adventurers.

The following evening, at the invitation of Stephen Marth, the program’s director, we returned to the convent to join current students and staff for a panel, reception, and tour. “That will be quick,” I thought as I recalled our small campus. But in the years intervening, by papal decree, the religious orders had been required to increase their accessibility, and the terrain beyond the convent wall, formerly forbidden, was ours to meander. 

As we strolled past gardens and gnarled trees beneath a trellis laden with vines heavy with fruit, we learned that one of the former nuns had been a student at Yale before choosing forty years here in solitude. What had happened to drive her into hiding?  

 

What a contrast to the convent’s role in opening the world to us, the students of 1973. And how different had been our limited life experiences from the kids studying here now. Dave had never been on a plane before our trip to Rome, and most of us had never been overseas. Our communications with home were sporadic, written on wispy blue aerograms – in pen, by hand! - and sent by Vatican mail, facts old-fashioned and alien to the students of ‘22, with their cell phones and prior travels.

 

It was a jolt to realize that youthful as we felt ourselves to be, we could be these kids’ grandparents. So much for thinking we hadn’t changed! And as we have, so has the world. Dave mused about the course of a hundred years: in the half century before 1973, our parents and grandparents lived through the Great Depression and a world tragically well-versed in war and dictatorship. In the fifty years since, technology has transformed life, and with the warning voices of a generation traumatized by WW II waning, the danger of Fascism has risen again. What will be the reminiscences of the students of TCRC 2022 when they return to Rome for a reunion in 2072?  

 

To be continued…