Origins

Those of you who know me know that I am incredibly passionate about this little thing called Montessori Education. The Montessori movement often marks its beginning with the opening of the first Casa dei Bambini in San Lorenzo, Rome in 1907. Today, 105 years later, Sean and I began our day by trekking across The Eternal City to visit it.

San Lorenzo is still a working class neighborhood. It's pretty rough around the edges and exhibits many of the typical characteristics of a lower income area: tasteless graffiti, trash on the streets, buildings in disrepair. In parts, it seemed to be making a turn for the better, while in other parts it appeared almost forgotten.

The first Casa still stands at number 58 Via dei Marsi, Rome. It is on the ground level of an apartment building full of private residences, and from what I gather, it is still a functioning public Montessori school. We knew we had arrived when we noticed a modest sign next to a door which read “Casa dei Bambini: Fondata nel 1907 da Maria Montessori.” The door was open.

We wandered in and found some info boards, in both Italian and English, which had been put up in the entry way during the centenary in 2007, and which we both read through (one of us slightly more enthusiastically than the other).

We then continued through the entry and into an open courtyard which was filled with trees and plants. There were apartment buildings on all 4 sides, each one with it's own entry door and set of doorbells. Next to each of the doorbells was written a very Italian surname and none of the doors or doorbells indicated anything that remotely resembled a school, but it didn't matter. It felt wonderful just to be there, to see the area around it, to imagine what it was like during her time. I felt lucky simply to stand where it all started.

Just a short walk away from the school is the largest and most beautiful cemetery I've ever seen. It's called the “Cimitero Monumental di Campo Verano”, or the Verano Monumental Cemetery, and in it is buried every Catholic who died in Rome between 1800 and 1950. It also happens to be where the Montessori family grave is located. Maria herself was buried--according to her wishes--in the Netherlands, where she died, but her parents, Renilde and Alessandro, were buried in the family plot at Verano. We managed to ask where to go by combining “famiglia Montessori?” with a shrug and a smile, and got a map and some vague directions in Italian from a very kind gentleman near the entrance. We wandered off into the cemetery, where narrow roads wound through acres and acres of graves and tombs, almost all of which sported flowers, it being the day after All Saint's Day- a very important holiday here in Italy.

I don't normally care much for cemeteries, but this one was absolutely beautiful. We were amazed by it's sheer vastness, and how incredibly many graves -in all sizes and styles- it held. We walked, admired, and casually searched for the right quadrant of the cemetery for the better part of an hour. The pictures don't nearly do it justice. Eventually we came to the number we were looking for. We walked all through that 'neighborhood' reading the names on the gravestones, none of which said “Montessori.” Feeling like it must be around somewhere, we looked across the street to where more tombs were located on the side of a building, and there it was! ***Ahhh... that must have been what the kind elderly gentleman at the entrance was trying to explain to us***

We peeked thru an iron gate and into the small room that was labeled with the family name. It contained the tombs of both of Maria's parents, and a plaque recognizing Maria herself, however, only in Italian. We lingered for a bit, admiring again the beauty of the place, and then found our way out of the cemetery. Although we still have 2 days left in Rome, I feel as though my visit here is complete- I saw what I came for.