Rome is a hospitable city. The eternal city has been overrun by visitors since the dawn of time. Christian pilgrims, traders, church officials, business travelers, art tourists, artists, intellectuals and all kinds of people in search of happiness. Life on the seven hills of Rome attracted curious people from all Italian provinces and people abroad already back in ancient times. As Christianity developed to be worldwide, Rome, the navel of the world, became a very popular travel destination.
In the year 1300, when Pope Boniface VIII invited for a gigantic jubilee celebration, around two million pilgrims flocked to the city. These huge amounts of visitors were a major challenge for both the Roman infrastructure and the hotels and restaurants. Where to house and how to feed all these people? At which places and farms could they change horses, and which roads had to be used to get to the city? What food and drink should be offered to the guests, and where should the necessary foodstuffs be obtained from? In the early days of tourism, convents of nuns and monks provided for the travelers’ spiritual and material wellbeing, and in most parts of the Christian world, travelers who were either tired or seeking shelter from the weather could always count on religious brothers or sisters. But in Rome, the number of visitors far exceeded the capacity of the pious hostelries. Private hotels and restaurants sprang up like mushrooms, because the business with the foreigners was profitable. Osteries and taverns flourished, and in the period from 1500 to 1800, Rome was the city with the best and cheapest gastronomy.
In the middle of the 19th century, there were more than 200 restaurants, 200 cafes and well over 100 hostels and lodgings. Roman hospitality was booming. At that time, one could certainly not speak of a ‘hotel’ in the modern sense. There were rarely single rooms, and the wealthier travelers had to spend the night in overcrowded dormitories, while the servants had to camp with the horses in the stables.
The food was also quite simple. The owner’s wife cooked and served hearty, traditional Roman or Latin food with a mug of table wine. To ensure the supply of drink for the thirsty guests, the coachmen went to Castelli already at night and supplied the hosts with new wine casks before the devil put on his shoes. In order to reduce the competition between the hosts, various companies of restaurants and innkeepers checked if a prohibition was observed, namely the prohibition of sending the employees out to hijack the approaching pilgrims and travelers, even already outside the city wall, and to lead them for their own accommodation. As the majority of potential guests were illiterate, the traders had to advertise themselves by means of eye-catching signs or attractive pictures on the doors and walls of the premises. There was a restaurant ‘at the bear’, ‘at the two sisters’, ‘at the two towers’, or ‘Osteria del Gallinaccio’ (the giant rooster) (near the present Via del Tritone), which was famous for its roast turkeys. To signal that you could also get something to drink, they decorated osterias and taverns with vine leaves or twigs. This leafy work, which was called frasche, gave its name to frasca or fraschetta, the real Roman restaurant.
Today, however, the cozy institutions have to be careful that they are not crowded out by fast food chains. Because the battle for the paying guests is just as fierce at the beginning of the 3rd millennium as in the old days.
