Good Villas Make Good Neighbors

In his 1914 poem “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost famously concludes that fences make the best neighbors. Distance, even a physical barrier, he suggests, helps generate good feelings between people who live in proximity. I’m paraphrasing, of course; Frost’s choice of words is far more, well, poetic. I hadn’t thought much about his observation since the winter I spent as a teaching fellow in Amherst, Massachusetts, where in the early twentieth century, Frost, too, weathered his fair share of subzero temperatures. When my Italian husband and I headed for warmer climes in Rome and eventually became parents, I began to wonder if Frost’s maxim held true in a collective culture like Italy’s. Multiple generations of Italian families often live in the same neighborhood, if not the same building. They gather for hours-long lunches with far more regularity than Americans’ annual get-together at Thanksgiving dinner. If my experience raising two girls in our Roman quartiere is any indication, communal spaces, rather than boundaries, are what make for Italian neighbors, even, I now know, during a global pandemic.

I first sensed Romans' neighborhood spirit when our eldest daughter grew old enough to frequent the playground. We live in Monteverde, a verdant part of Rome located on the Janiculum hill across the river from the city’s ancient center. Its most prominent attraction is the elaborate fountain completed in 1614 to celebrate Pope Paul V’s restoration of the local aqueduct. Four hundred years later, the monument gained further fame as the backdrop to the opening scene of Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning film, La Grande Bellezza (“The Great Beauty”). In the film, a Japanese tourist turns his back to the fountain to take pictures of Rome’s panorama and, after clicking the shutter, drops dead, enacting the dictum that those who behold the spectacular beauty of the Eternal City “see Rome and die.”

Monteverde’s tree-lined streets and parks certainly are pretty. But nowhere within the neighborhood’s network of residential roads is there any sign of a swing set or slide. Instead, the local playground lies nestled amidst a walled-in villa accessed through a small, arched entryway that seems straight out of the classic children’s novel, “The Secret Garden.”

Once inside Villa Sciarra, named for Prince Maffeo Barberini Colonna di Sciarra, who sold the property to an American couple in 1902, the chaos of Rome gives way to stone paths, canopies of trees, and fountains that enchant even when drained for maintenance, which they usually are. Beyond the treetops, a weathervane beckons, attracting visitors to a stately, if run down, aviary. Rumor has it that through the 1980s, the high-flown bird cage was home to a family of peacocks, much to the delight of the children who flocked to the adjacent yard to enjoy, yes, the local playground.

At first glance, the area has little to recommend it. Two bright yellow slides take center stage, a smaller slide shaped like a hippopotamus stands off to the side, and two swings—one with a harness for toddlers, the other with a flat seat for older kids—round out the equipment. An extended Italian family visit would take over the park in a heartbeat. Yet the modest setup has provided the backdrop for generations of children and, perhaps to a greater extent, their parents, to learn what it means to be neighborly. 

For my four-and-a-half-year-old daughter, the swing set has offered the most forthright lessons in playground etiquette. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has also provided lessons in hygiene, as parents wait anxiously to douse their kids with hand sanitizer the minute their feet touch the ground. Of course, given the opportunity, the children, my daughter included, would swing the entire afternoon until bedtime, reveling in the sensation of freedom, and, perhaps, a moment to forget their own subconscious stresses. She learned quickly, however, that seemingly all children crave the exhilaration of soaring birdlike through the air, which requires that everyone learn the “s” word: sharing. Or, perhaps less onerous, the “t” phrase: taking turns.

On more than one occasion, I overheard Italian parents use another “t” phrase, which began to open my eyes to their different take on the situation. At the park, they would remind their children, “tutto è di tutti”: “everything belongs to everyone.” If the swing also belongs to the rapidly growing number of kids waiting in line, then you have to get down so they, too, can enjoy what is theirs. The child sitting in the swing is only sometimes convinced by this logic. But he usually gives up the swing anyway, if for no other reason than to avoid the phalanx of impatient eyes glaring at him from the wings. 

Parents aren’t the only ones pointing out the playground’s communal qualities. Older siblings—as grown up as six or seven—also take it upon themselves to instruct anyone younger than they are, even if not a relation, in the ways of the villa’s world. “Bimba!” (“Little Girl!”) a high-pitched voice hollers in a tone that’s more nascent confidence than outright bossiness. An older kid then proceeds to caution a wide-eyed two-year-old against unorthodox park acrobatics, such as walking up a slide, or standing on a swing. “You might hurt yourself,” she says, stating an obvious potential outcome. “What’s more,” she adds, with wisdom beyond her years, “you might hurt someone else.” 

The practice of bringing kids’ personal toys to the park, not just willing to share them with other children but with the intention to do so, has offered me the greatest insight into Italians’ generosity of spirit. A grandmother shows up with a bag full of plastic plates, cups, and cutlery, and beneath a slide an impromptu “ristorante” opens for business. A nanny with a glittery backpack full of colorful ice cream cones? The kids move on to the “gelateria” for dessert. 

A few weeks ago, one mom dismantled a small instruction booklet in her purse to help her son and his friend make paper airplanes. When my daughter and her friend looked longingly at the handmade toys, the mom tore out two more pages and patiently demonstrated the folds necessary to make the pieces of paper take flight. That evening, my daughter insisted on keeping the little airplane next to her bed. We haven’t been back to the park in a few weeks, in part because it gets dark earlier, but also as a health precaution. The airplane’s still there, though, equipped with instructions to operate a cappuccino maker in Norwegian.