Leaping Wolf Mural

This She-Wolf mural was done by Belgian artist from Ghent known as ROA in a single day in 2014. It’s on the side of an apartment building next to a gas station and a park in the blue collar neighborhood of Testaccio. The she-wolf with a suckling Romulus & Remus is a familiar sight everywhere in this city, from coats of arms on plaques to the multitude of gift shops with their trinkets, but ROA managed to capture the feral quality of the wolf, as if she’s still wild and ferocious, terrifying, strong yet scrawny. I think this wolf symbolizes not so much the spirit of Rome but the spirit of Testaccio.