Rome

Put your Roman togas on (by the way, they are remnants borrowed from the Etruscans!) as this will be a long post!

Fred came back to Italy for the boys’ “ski” break last week and we set out by train for Rome (just under two hours on the Eurostar) the next morning…spent three days in Rome and then flew EasyJet  (cheaper than the train these days) to Paris for three days and then back to Florence.   Rome was magnificent, much moreso than I’d imagined.  Rome and Florence are really worlds apart and were really “worlds apart,” different kingdoms really, until unification of Italy in 1860.  Florence was a republic for much of its history and was far enough away from the Vatican and not on the via Francigena (one of the main medieval pilgrimage roads between Rome and northern Europe…all roads lead to Rome) highway.  

We took a taxi through Rome to our hotel and the first thing we all noticed was the bright white of the travertine stone of many of the buildings.  I’m talking bright white!  Our taxi deposited us in Piazza della Rotonda where we’d booked a hotel (Albergo del Senato—a wonderful old hotel with a marble staircase, many rooms with little terraces facing the back alleys and a really nice staff) right next door to the Pantheon which is Rome’s oldest building and considered its greatest architectural achievement.   The Pantheon (pre-Christianity “all gods” but later co-opted into a Christian church at the end of the Roman empire about 608 AD) is the best preserved building in Rome…2000 years old, completely intact.  The pictures below don’t do it justice….all I will say is that I can see how Brunelleschi was inspired by the dome of the Pantheon in building the dome for Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence…and also how we was inspired by its perfect proportions…the diameter of the Pantheon’s dome is equal to its height in the center.  It is surreal being inside: light is provided by its circular oculus above (a 9 meter opening in the dome) and all around the marble floor are these small holes that drain the rain.  We were able to walk from the hotel over to the Trajan Forum, the Roman Forum, the Vittorio Emmanuel II memorial and the Colosseum.  The boys recognized a lot more of this than I did at first take since they’ve been studying Latin!  It’s so strange to see cars buzzing around on modern roads juxtaposed against large columns jutting out from the ruins.  And realizing, after walking through the Jewish ghetto and other areas, that buildings were constructed of salvaged and plundered “re-cycled” stone from the Roman ruins. People would just go up to the Colosseum and other ruins and hack out what they needed to build new structures.  In front of the Colosseum there were fake gladiators who gently accost you to take pictures with them and then ask for money.

Per Owens’ advice, we took a private tour of the Vatican and were so glad we did!  We didn’t have to wait in a long line with the other Pilgrims to get into Vatican City…went right through the queue with our guide who took us through the Vatican Museums. Too marvelous in the museums…particularly the ceiling of the map room and all the collected ancient statuary.  I was almost finished at that point reading “The Agony and the Ecstasy” about Michelangelo’s life…so seeing the culmination of about 7 years of his life work on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling and front wall was amazing.  Thinking of him lying on his back up on scaffolding painting frescoes of the Creation story on the ceiling with paint and lime dripping into his eyes.  On the Last Judgment wall, our guide also pointed out one of the guys who gave Michelangelo troubles…he was painted with a serpent wrapped around his body and just about to ingest his privates.  Or how Michelangelo inserted a painting of his own face on the “hide” of St. Bartholomew after he (St. Bartholeomew) was flayed alive. So interesting also to see some of the coverings later put over the private parts when Pope Paul IV of Inquisition fame wanted the frescoes whitewashed over because they were heretical.  As an aside, it has been enlightening to read the history of the popes and think of how they characterize the pendulum of human behavior over the ages….the Medici popes with their orgies and excesses followed by Pope Paul IV who put the iron clamps on with the Inquisition.  Rome proper has over 1000 churches…it was the site of quite a bit of martyrdom, too, starting with St. Peter, who was crucified upside down (have seen that on a number of frescoes, probably best so far at the Brancacci Chapel in Florence) yet many of the popes seemed just as barbarous, if not more, than the Romans were.

We saw the marks on the floor of the Sistine Chapel where the stove is put during Conclave when they decide on the New Pope (wet wheat was originally burned for black smoke, and dry wheat for white smoke).  We went down the Papal steps, over into the grottos (catacombs) under St. Peter’s where all the Popes are buried.  Strange to walk past John Paul II’s tomb with all the little white notes on it and people praying beside it, and then round the corner and see the covering over the entrance to the crypt for St. Peter the apostle, right under the main altar of St. Peter’s basilica followed by walking into St. Peter’s basilica itself...the largest church in the world.  As another aside, apparently Pope John Paul II is quite well preserved and they are going to haul him up into the basilica where you can view him in a glass case like Lenin. You glean some appreciation of St Peter’s size compared with other great cathedrals of the world since there are  markings on the nave's floor comparing where the other churches of the world would be if they were fit inside St. Peter’s.  It would seem that part of  this was about bigger and better…the Popes just conquering and taxing to raise funds for bigger and better.   It casts even more of a shadow on Catholicism for me to see the excesses…however, the magnificence of Michelangelo’s works commissioned by so many cardinals and popes over his 89 year lifetime is a tribute to the sustaining power of art, especially his magnificent marble Pieta just inside and to the right of the main entrance. 

We walked to Navona Square (by the way the fountain is way too shallow to have drowned the fourth Preferiti in “Angels and Demons”….we decided to watch the movie again after seeing the Vatican), Trevi Fountain at night (had to see that in person after the scene in "La Dolce Vita"), and on to the Spanish steps to find the house where Keats died and also where the boys bought green laser pointers so that they could later shine on buildings in Rome at night.  They want to go back, we want to go back after we finish digesting this trip!  Speaking of digesting, I really can’t tell you a thing about food there…it seemed that eating was secondary to exploring!

Inside the Pantheon (built 2000 years ago as a pagan temple to all gods and later co-opted into a sacred structure)

oculus of Pantheon

Pantheon from our hotel

Ryan and Evan in front of Colosseum with fake Gladiators

Fred, Ryan and Evan in front of Trajan ruins

Colosseum

Roman Forum

Trajan ruins

Ceiling in Vatican Museum

Boys walking down Papal steps outside Sistine Chapel

St. Peter's Basilica

Famous huge Pine cone in Vatican Courtyard.  It is one of Papal symbols (yet this was said to be made in 1st or 2nd century by Romans as a pagan symbol of fertility.  Another explanation is that the pine cone requires a strong heart to withstand the fire required to break it open and spread its seeds and thus is a symbol of faith.) One of the other recurring symbols of  the Vatican are the gold and silver crossed keys which are the "keys to the kingdom of heaven"

Roman Empire at its apogee  

Monument to Vittorio Emmanuel II (love that bright white travertine stone)

St. Peter's Basilica dome

one of over 1000 churches in Rome

Altar in St. Peter's Basilica (oculus is made of alabaster)

Bridge of the Angels over Tiber River

Castel San Angelo (you can't see but there's a walkway that connects it to the Vatican--this is where the popes hide out when things get a little rough.  It has also served as a prison)


 

Pope's gown and triple crown (retired now because crown too heavy!) inside St. Peter's Basilica

Sopra Minerva Church right by Pantheon.  Beloved "Elefanto" and Egyptian obelisk out front.  This church has St. Catherine of Siena's body inside under altar (her head is under altar at Duomo in Siena).

Swiss guard at Vatican under Pope's residence