I went to Rome ready to be overwhelmed by grandeur, history, and carbs. Instead, I came back with a camera roll full of… fingers. Not mine—those of ancient Roman emperors. Turns out, when you visit the Capitoline Museums, it’s not the full statues that catch your eye. It’s their colossal hands, toes, and slightly accusatory index fingers pointing somewhere between the divine and the absurd.
I became weirdly obsessed. Every broken statue felt like a still from a lost epic—one where the main characters are just disembodied parts. The Romans loved to think big: massive temples, oversized gods, and hands the size of scooters. It all felt oddly cinematic, like they were already prepping for widescreen glory centuries before CinemaScope.
Then I went to Cinecittà. And it clicked.
Cinecittà, the legendary studio where Fellini crafted dreams and Marcello Mastroianni perfected the art of existential lounging, felt like a natural continuation of Rome’s flair for drama and scale. Just swap marble for celluloid, gods for divas, and chariots for dolly tracks.
Inside those sound stages, Rome’s imperial spirit was reborn—bigger, brighter, and with better lighting. Fellini didn’t just direct films, he conjured entire worlds from smoke, fabric, and fantasy. The set remnants, the empty piazzas, and the mythic mood of the place made me realize: both ancient Rome and Cinecittà believed in spectacle, in the power of image, and in a touch of glorious excess.
So yes, I went to Rome and fell in love with a finger. Then I went to Cinecittà and realized it was part of a much bigger hand—one that’s been shaping stories for over two thousand years.
📷 Rome 2015