BAR S.CALISTO: The island of peace in Rome
by Ayfer Selamoğlu
There is a square in Trastevere…
Its name is Piazza San Calisto…
That square is our living room…
There is a bar in the square.
That Bar is our corner of peace.
Its name is San Calisto…
There’s a shining star in the Bar…
His name is Marcello Forti…
He is our Marcellino.
Was Marcello Forti dreaming of these days when he decided to leave the town of Busci in the province of L’Aquila and set his route towards Rome? We don’t know. But today, we know that he, too, became an immortal name in the immortal city of Rome.
It was the early 160s. When Marcello Forti came to Rome, he worked at various jobs. He washed dishes, worked as a waiter, and became an assistant cook. In the late 1960s, he bought his own Bar. Initially, there was just a shutter and a haberdashery shop beside it. They were doing well. Customers were increasing, but the space needed to be more.
For this reason, he decided to close the haberdashery. Marcello worked as if he wanted to earn moments, not money. He transformed San Calisto Square into Rome’s living room and his Bar into a conversation corner.
His prices were modest, and his hospitality was generous. That’s why his postcard-colored stories were recorded every day. Some customers who connected the bar garden with San Calisto Square were chatting at the table, and some were standing. It didn’t matter whether they stood or sat. Where time stood still, their laughter rose to the skies. Some of them peacefully read the newspaper or book in their hands. People who had placed their tables and chairs across the Bar before the church were playing cards happily. Some went for a walk with their friends, some with their dogs, and they sat at the Bar chatting. Families dancing to music with their children, people meeting for an after-work snack, birds competing to grab leftover food from people… Everyone is happy in this democratic Bar, which hosts everyone from artists to politicians, academics, students, clergy and even criminals. Sometimes, new friendships are formed at close tables where loneliness is postponed. Sometimes, solutions can be found in current debates. Mornings are cornetto and coffee time. We drink coffee under the hot morning sun, accompanied by essential agenda topics such as politics or football. Then come the tourists, locals and workers. Afterwards, the ice cream race between adults and children begins. And the most energetic time of the day comes. It is time for meetings and Aperetivo. Spritz, beer, chips, olives, and peanut snacks are passed hand to hand. Each of them constitutes a movie frame of Marcellino’s Bar. Ivano De Matteo, an actor, director, writer of the movie Ultimo Stadio and a regular bar customer, dedicated a documentary called Barricata San Calisto to the living room of the Romans.
Marcello’s Bar and his family grew with his personality and work philosophy. Thanks to Marcellino, San Calisto Bar turned into one of the symbolic places not only of Trastevere but also of Rome. It was so popular that customers did not close the Bar even when the decision was made to close it during the period of unfounded complaints. Because the Bar was theirs. All the people of Trastevere and local and foreign customers protested for hours for him. Every day, he hung supportive notes on the Bar’s window in favour of opening the Bar. I was among those who experienced this spirit of unity in those days. Just as we shared the joyful moments with enthusiasm, we also got through the sad days together and with enthusiasm. And then, between Granit coffee and 66cl Peroni, laughter began to rise again from the tables in the sun. The neighbourhood residents moved their tables and chairs back to the front of the Bar and cheerfully continued their card games where they left off. The sound of live concerts surrounded the square again. The children danced, and the parents watched them with joy. This was truly home for all of us… Marcello had achieved this… In the period of individualisation that came with globalisation, Marcello stubbornly kept the human traditions of the past alive. It’s not food and drink in the Bar. It offered the taste of being “us”… Although a star has risen from Trastevere, surrounding Rome and crossing borders, Marcello and San Castello Bar are still number one in modesty and maturity. And even if we don’t go or see it, that Bar is our Bar…