It led to Capua78 and was the first Roman road to be paved in the manner of the Carthaginian roads, that is, with basalt stones. By that time Rome was a major power. The roads of the early republican period were simple tracks, difficult to transit for merchants and armies. That must have been why the central government felt the need to speed up the traffic of the armies. Its surface was perfectly smooth, and two vehicles coming from opposite directions could pass each other. Along its route were numerous stages: Right after the Porta Capena was Ad Novum; there followed Bovillae (Boville, near Frattocchie), Aricias (Ariccia), Ad Sponsas (perhaps Cisterna), Tres Tabernae (still not identified), and Forum Appii (whose tavern was known for having mosquitoes as large as elephants). Then came Ad Medias (Mesa), Feronia, Tarracina (Terracina), Fundi (Fondi), Formiae (Formia), Minturnae (Minturno), Ad Pontem campanum, Urbanas (Urbana), Casilinum (present-day Capua), and finally Capua.
But there were other roads toward different points south, such as the Ostiensis, the Laurentina, the Campana, and the Ardeatina. Toward the east ran the Latina, the Tusculana, the Asinaria, the Labicana, the Praenestina or Gabina, the Collatina, and the Tiberina or Valeria. The roads leading north were the Nomentana, the Salaria, the Flaminia, and the Cassia.
Besides the Appia, the richest and most ornate roads were the Flaminia, the Latina, and the Cassia. The first stretch, just outside the walls, was lined with tombs and mausoleums. In later centuries, shepherds and peasants of the agro used their ruins as shelter for the night.
Settlements gradually formed at the stopping places along the roads and grew into villages, towns, and cities. They were designated municipium, civitas, or vicus, but there were also small agglomerations, very important for the nomenclature of the roads, such as mansio, positio, and mutatio. A mansio was a simple cluster of houses that included one or more taverns for staying overnight. The positio was a mansio located on the seashore. And a mutatio was a place where horses could be changed.
With the centuries, the ancient Roman stations took the name of stazioni di posta79 and added other services, such as a church and a grocery shop, especially for rural workers. Many of these villages were also fortified with sturdy walls; one entered through one gate and left through the other. A number of these stations became known as an osteria della posta and remained in operation for many centuries. Some are remembered for the illustrious names that passed through them: the osteria of Grotta Rossa, outside the Porta del Popolo, already existed in Cicero’s day;80 the emperor Vespasian camped in the neighborhood when getting ready to give battle to Vitellius in 69, and it was still standing during the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, between Constantine and Maxentius, in October 312. Tradition has it that, in the twelfth century, the concordat between Pope Paschal II and Henry V on the question of the investiture81 was signed at an osteria near Sutri; much later, an osteria witnessed the retreat of Garibaldi in 1849. Montaigne and later Shelley and Byron stayed at Castelnuovo di Porto, since the sixteenth century a property of the Vatican, which gave it in concession for use as an inn for periods of nine years. From 1700 on, this station displayed the image of a peacock on its sign.
The population of these osterias along the great arteries grew over time. Other artisans joined the blacksmith, the tavern keeper, and the priest who said mass to provide needed services: shoemakers who made bags and purses, tinsmiths who made kitchen utensils. Little by little the villages grew into the large and small towns that today still line the major highways. One of the most important was certainly the Osteria della Storta on the Via Cassia, at a strategic point on the Via Francigena, 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) from Rome. There were actually five osterias here, given the importance of the interchange. Already in the Roman period there was an osteria for the postal service and to this end was built a stabulum for the post. According to tradition, Saint Ignatius of Loyola had a vision when he stopped here on his way to Rome. The Osteria dei Cacciatori (of the hunters), at the foot of Monte Sacro, was still standing, when, on August 15, 1805, Simón Bolívar swore he would liberate South America from Spanish domination; and the Osteria dei Francesi in Marino, near Frascati, in the Castelli Romani, took its name from Alberico da Barbiano, the great condottiero in the service of the papacy, in memory of his victory over the French in 1379.
One of the osterias on the Tiber Island belonged to a man named Grappasonne. In 1908, Queen Margherita’s car broke down in front of it. Later the owner hung on a hook the chair on which Her Majesty rested while the problem was being dealt with. From that day on, the sign on the osteria bore this inscription: “Osteria with choice wines from the forest of Marino. In this wretched osteria, on the 17th day of October 1908, the automobile of Her Majesty the Queen broke down, and she sat in this humble chair. The owner, Abele Grappasonne, moved by such an honor, placed this commemoration.”
Prices were already regulated in 1529, when in the absence of Pope Clement VII (1523–34), the legate Antonio del Monte published a “table of prices” for the osterias and the suburban taverns, from which we deduce that the price of bread in the osterias must have been one and a half bolognino per libbra, wine four bolognini the boccale, and the “evening,” which included lodging for the night and the meal for the traveler and his horse, should not exceed twenty-five bolognini. A ration of fodder, or, as they called it then, provenna, cost five bolognini. In the city things were changing, because the rates varied according to the level and reputation of the establishments.
As the centuries passed, many of the suburban osterias disappeared with the vicissitudes of the territory, but vestiges of a number of them remain, and a careful eye today can still spot them, especially along the consular roads. Many were converted into something else and their former use lost from memory. But in their time, they had an importance we would find hard to believe nowadays, with duties that today are unthinkable. For example, a 1675 edict stated that caporali82 must take peasants who fell ill,83 with all their belongings, to the nearest osteria that was not a hut but was instead built of masonry and had bedrooms. The landlord was to be given a form with the patient’s name and other information and was to provide the first treatment—something to eat. Often the main problem was hunger, for which the stock cure was a hearty bowl of soup, fresh eggs, and lemon balm (melissa), an herb with antipyretic properties. If the patient grew worse, the landlord was to take him personally to a hospital in Rome. The expenses of board and transport were reimbursed by the Elemosiniere di S.S.84 This edict had to be displayed outside the osteria. But malaria was fierce, and too often the dead were buried in the countryside by the peasants themselves, or by the landlord near the osteria.
In the agro, the larders of the osterias were especially precious during the growing season: here the caporali got supplies for the peasants’ meals; and when the osteria was near the fields, the workers would often go in person for supplies.
The hospitality situation in Rome was different. As the capital of Christianity, Rome has always been thronged by pilgrims, which explains why there have been so many taverns and osterias ever since the Middle Ages.
The historian Giovanni Villani, in his Croniche, tells that on the occasion of the jubilee year decreed by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300, some two million pilgrims came to Rome: “A large number of the Christians who were then living made the pilgrimage, both women and men, from distant and different countries, far and near. And it was the most marvelous thing ever seen, that all the year round in Rome, in addition to the Roman people, two hundred thousand pilgrims, not counting those who were on the road going and returning, all were supplied and content with their victuals . . . both the horses and the people.”
Even if we cannot verify the number of travelers, it is easy enough to imagine how, on occasions of the kind, the city turned into one immense tavern, particularly since the less well-off Romans took the opportunity to rent their own beds and their own spaces.
Until the eighteenth century, no distinction was made between a tavern and an osteria, since the place of refreshment coincided with the place in which one could eat, drink, sleep, and lodge one’s horses.
Since the number of taverns and osterias fluctuated, depending
