Tons and tons of things -- June 17 through 20

So I guess I never finished that last post...and by the way, Celia, the "real Italian dessert" turned out to be chocolate cake. I wanted to find some panna cotta, but every restaurant we went to said it was "finished" by the time we got there. So I went down and, of course, back up an impossibly steep hill just for a piece of chocolate cake. Such is life.

Anyway, after our visit to the Roman fora on Friday, four of us (Taco, Jason, Melissa and I) took off for the Piazzo del Popolo, my favorite of all Roman piazzas, to see a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit. It was not an exhibit of his art, but rather an exhibit of many of his devices, which had been constructed by the museum using his notes and sketches. You could play with most of them, which was neat, but the coolest ones (i.e. the Air Screw, a sort of proto helicopter) and the weapons were off-limits for obvious reasons. Still, all in all it was very interesting.

Then we headed on up the hill over the Piazza to the Villa Borghese which is a massive park that is home to several museums. We were on a quest to get tickets to the hugely popular Borghese Gallery, and were lucky enough to get some for the next day.

Everyone was supposed to go out Friday night but most people turned out to be too tired and so the dessert idea was hatched and our evening ended up being very mellow, which was alright because I ended up needing a lot of energy for the rest of the weekend.

On Saturday Taco and Jen and Genna and Melissa and I had a very rare opportunity to take a tour of the Auditorium of Maesenas, an ancient site that is not open to the public. Actually, everyone had the opportunity but we were the only ones who took advantage of it. The caretaker of the site had tipped our prof off that someone was going to be there that morning and that anyone who showed up would be let in and given a tour. he neglected to mention that it would be entirely in Italian, but luckily Taco had carried along his eminently useful Claridge (the essential source on ancient Roman architectural sites), so we were able to decipher most of the site. It was either an auditorium in which Maesenas' rhetoric students recited their work, or a large underground fountain. See how much we know about Roman architecture? Regardless, it was very interesting.

Afterwards Taco and Melissa and I walked over to Santa Maria Maggiore, another of the four most important Roman churches, and very interesting to me because of the Medieval mosaics located over the archway above the altar. We teach them in the Medieval art undergraduate class, but the only slides my prof has are from a book, with a big page division down the middle, so she should be happy to have my photos. It was a beautiful church, but not one of my favorites so far.

Next it was on to the Baths of Diocletian, where we had actually been during our first week, but had not seen the museums. We rushed to the church to try to catch the noonday sunbeam falling on the meridian line, but missed it by a few minutes. It also turned out that the museums we were interested in were closed for no reason (how very Italian of them). Taco and I were so depressed that we decided the only thing that could cheer us up was a Big Mac. I know, I know, but sometimes you just have to have the Micky D's.

After lunch he and I toured the Palazzo Massimo, one of the ancient sculpture branches of the Museo Romano. We were hoping to make it to the other branch later in the day, but the bus lines did not cooperate. There was much to see in the Massimo, however, including one of my favorites, a Dying Niobid. Again, I will post pictures at some point when I get back if anyone is interested in perusing them.

By this time our appointment at the Borghese Gallery was upon us so we hurried back to the top of that hill, across town, to see it. It was absolutely, without a doubt, one of the best museums I have ever been in. If you are ever in Rome you cannot miss it. I have never been a fan of Bernini particularly, but his Apollo and Daphne and Rape of Persephone are unbelievably beautiful. It's not often that I stand for more than a few minutes in front of any artwork, regardless of how much I like it, but those two statues are spellbinding.

They also have several Caravaggios, including one of my personal favorites, the David with the Head of Goliath. His stuff is so powerful.

Saturday night, again, was supposed to be a night to go out and party, but once again everyone lost steam ahead of time. Taco and I ended up wandering off to the city center, because I had been saying I wanted to see the Forum at night and could never seem to get the entire group geared up at the same time. It's much easier to navigate with just two people. Another sight that is not to be missed. There was some creepy art exhibition (if you can call it that) going on across from the Colosseum though. There are large arches holding up the hill that the Temple of Venus and Rome is built on, and a passageway underneath, and someone had set up projectors so that they were projecting images of fluttering greenish material, very ghostly, on the inside wall of the passageways, and some sort of speakers playing ghostly muttering voices, some Italian, some English, some Latin, that occasionally would get loud enough to hear a distinct phrase like "Are you ready?" It was actually quite disturbing.

Sunday was another museum day...first the Gallery Spada which is a so-so painting collection. the main attraction there is the outdoor hallway/gallery designed by Borromini. It appears to be quite long and have a large equestrian statue at the end, but when someone walks down it, you realize that it is actually a very short hallway designed to give the impression of length. The statue at the end is only about 3 feet tall, and an average (American) man would be taller than the columns at the end of the hall. Sort of a very sophisticated funhouse I guess. Quite impressive.

After the gallery we visited the Palazzo Barberini. Much of the collection is under wraps right now because of some work being done on the building, but were were able to see the four Caravaggios, including his Narcissus which is gorgeous. I don't know how many times I can use that word without sounding trite, but I don't know what else to say about it. We also visited the private apartments of the Barberini family, which houses their personal collection, and I was excited to see that they had two pastels by Rosalba Carriera, a female Venetian artist that I had worked on two semesters ago. It was the first time I had seen her work in person.

Next Taco and I stopped in at a site that is nearby, the one that I sent several people postcards from, but don't want to describe on this blog until I know they received them. All Taco said was that he thinks that the people who put it together were seriously mentally disturbed. I disagree, but I'll leave that for a later entry. I promised Mom I would eventually tell about it so that Grandmother Weddle can read it, but I'll wait a while.

Then it was off to Piazza Novona for some gelato, and I happened to mention to Taco that there are two churches within two blocks of the Piazza which have Caravaggio paintings in them. He has been complaining the whole trip about my dragging him to see the Caravaggios, but this time he asked if we could go see them (I had already seen them, with Celia). Of course I wasn't going to say no, but now I get to tease him because he has actually started enjoying the churches and the Caravaggios, a big change from last week when he grumbled about being forced to see anything besides ancient stuff and even asked me why I was even on the trip if I was interested in this "other stuff." I guess you could say he's been converted.

A few of us went out for a really good pizza that night, and then called it a day.

Today was quite busy as well. First we visited the headquarters of the Commune, the government office responsible for cataloging all of the local archaeological sites. We had a crash course on their mapping system which is interesting, but far too complicated to get into here. It should be sufficient to say that it is highly accurate and very precise...in theory you could view a map of an area, focus on a particular tomb, and zoom in even to a particular set of bones, even to a particular crack on a particular skull (provided that the images were in the database) and there would be no distortion or pixillation of the images. Cool, huh?

After being wowed by that system, we went to the Circus Maximus, which our professor had seeded with bowtie macaroni. I know it sounds like a gradeschool art project or something, but the plan was to let us practice Fieldwalking, where you spread out in an evenly-spaced chorus line and slowly walk and look for deposits of objects. It was a very hot day to be doing it, but interesting all the same. We were also providing a spectacle for the tourists, who seemed to think that we were doing something very important. Kind of makes you wonder who IS really doing something important and who is just playing with macaroni.

Afterwards, Taco and I spent quite a bit of time hunting down what must be the smallest museum in Rome, the Museo delle Anima del Purgatorio, the Musem of Spirits in Purgatory. We ended up finding it in a church and had to ring the bell to be let in the gate. It was all very Gothic (actually, it was...maybe the only real Gothic church in Rome, complete with flying buttresses), but the "museum" turned out to be about 10 photographs on a wall, all examples of handprints, fingerprints, or faces supposedly burned into objects like psalm books by deceased individuals attempting to communicate with those still living. Interesting but not overly convincing.

Guess that was about it for the last few days. someone else needs to use this computer, the only one with a scanner, so I will leave it at that and return another day soon. Hope everyone is well and had a good Father's Day, if applicable. Everyone take care and write a response if you have a minute!

Ciao,
Candace