AA-2026-51350E
On the image
Rome in the 1950s had decided that bicycles and handcarts were the enemies of civilized traffic, and posted paired red prohibition signs to say so between eight in the morning and nine at night — a schedule suggesting the city was fully prepared to be chaotic on its own terms the rest of the time. Two young women stand on the pavement below them, handbags in hand, dressed in the neat blouses and dark skirts that were the universal touring uniform of the American or Northern European woman discovering postwar Italy. They have the slightly posed alertness of people asked to stop walking so someone could take their picture, which is the defining look of every holiday snap ever taken.
Behind them a large bus grinds through the street anyway, because Roman bus drivers in the 1950s treated signage as a category of suggestion rather than law. The ochre and terracotta facades rising on both sides place this firmly in central Rome — the kind of piazza or boulevard where a tourist in 1957 could stand beneath a tree, feel entirely sophisticated, and be absolutely right about that.
The signs themselves are the real document here: the Italian state had recently standardized its road signage as part of the postwar effort to modernize infrastructure, and these two discs — one banning cyclists, one banning cart-pullers — are a precise record of what a Roman street still needed to prohibit.
Visually related — by likeness
Two Young Women, Roman Street, Divieto Transito Signs, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-51350E. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/two-young-women-roman-street-divieto-transito-signs-1950s.
@misc{aaAA202651350E,
title = {Two Young Women, Roman Street, Divieto Transito Signs, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-51350E},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/two-young-women-roman-street-divieto-transito-signs-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Two Young Women, Roman Street, Divieto Transito Signs, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-51350E UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/two-young-women-roman-street-divieto-transito-signs-1950s ER -
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