Roman Ruins and Romantics

The thing I love most about Rome is that it’s full of history and art. On every sidewalk on every block, there is something from ancient or medieval times. Romans do not destroy buildings in order to construct a modern piece of architecture, like a lot of America does. Instead, they build on, fix things, and add another layer of history.

There is a reason why our Study Abroad class was named “Layers of Rome”. We peeled back and exposed different layers of Rome’s history on a daily basis. Even on an hourly basis. We walked through museums, ruins, and piazza’s that contained an immense amount of history from different time periods.

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The Roman Forum was on of the sites that I had learned bits of information on throughout high school and college. Standing in the middle of the forum, however, was not the same. Taking a huge leap into the past, we explored the forum that was walked by the likes of Cicero and Julius Caesar.  The thing about studying abroad though, was that we still had assignments and work to do. A united groan was heard throughout all of us when we learned that we’d be having to do a scavenger hunt worksheet while we were there. A worksheet? While we’re standing in such a historical place in Rome?

There were a couple of structures that I had studied and learned about when I was studying architecture during my first year of college, and I don’t think I would have recognized them as ruins in this plaza had I not had the map provided to us. A few things were listed that I was particularly excited to see:  the Arch of Septimius Severus, Arch of Titus, and the Temple of Romulus.

It was hot, there were creative sweat patterns being made on our clothes, and it was, of course, crowded. We walked down the Sacra Via, the Sacred Road, and stopped behind the Temple of Vesta and started our class presentations. We were all given a topic to present on while we were there, and whenever our topic had to do with something that we were visiting that day, we would go ahead and present. We sat on broken columns and ruins without even thinking about it until a lady yelled at us in Italian to get our feet off of them. We were sitting on ancient columns! Like nothing. I can’t even wrap my head around it.

So much detail was put into every building and every arch the Romans contracted. It makes me wish that the same was still done today (here in El Paso and everywhere). Attention to detail and being proud of what can be accomplished and created, no matter how long it takes to achieve it, is something we should still value in architecture today. We should take that lesson from the Romans.

The Temple of Castor and Pollux – close up
The Temple of Castor and Pollux – with just three columns standing, it’s hard to image what it looked like as a whole. 
The Arch of Titus 
The Temple of Vesta

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The Keats and Shelley museum is another one of those structures that holds layers of Rome. Bus 75 took me and my classmates near the Spanish Steps and the museum. The cobblestone, being walked on by tourists and natives alike, led us to the museum, surrounded now by a perfume shop and other retail stores.

Walking around this tiny apartment (still bigger than mine, though) it was hard to image famous poets living here, one suffering from Tuberculoses, and sharing the space with their landlady and daughter. A prime real estate location right now, I wonder how it looked when Keats and his best friend, Joseph Severn, were living there. The only thing I can relate it to is “On the Road” by John Kerouac. It was the Beat generation before the Beat generation.

A very brief history:
John Keats moved to Rome in the early 1800’s hoping that it would improve his health (Tuberculoses). Though Shelley never lived there, his name is also included in the museum because he came during the Grand Tour and also died in Italy. Both writers have pieces inspired by Rome.

This is the layout of the “house”. I use that term loosely since it was more of a small apartment area that the John Keats and Joseph Severn shared with the land lady.

The Spanish Steps.
The entrance to the museum. 
This was the original floor of the building, so yes, this is what Keats walked on as well.

The ceiling of the apartment. Also original, also stared at by Keats.


This is a bust of John Keats with really good hair.

After our trip to the museum we headed to the Protestant Cemetery so  that we could see where Keats and Shelley are buried. It’s located right behind the pyramid of Cestius, and if you blink you would totally miss it (I felt like this was a theme with Rome). Amongst all the traffic and craziness of the city, the cemetery is a beautiful and peaceful escape- which is good for the people buried there. Once you walk into the cemetery it’s easy to forget that there is a busy city right outside.

Upon Keats’ wishes, his gravestone does not say his name on it. Instead it says, “Here lies one whose Name was writ in water”. The irony brought to attention by one of the professors: He understood that everything would disappear at some point, like writing something in the water, but yet he left a legacy behind in his writing- which is why he is so important and why so many writers and scholars study him still today. The whole concept was just really awesome and this past semester I actually had one of my writing professors ask us, “What would you want written on your grave?” And that is what Keats chose.

Keats’ gravestone.

His best friend and old roommate, Joseph Severn, is buried next to him. Severn got to live a full life and didn’t die until he was in his 80s- which is good news.

A close up of just Keats’ grave.

The Grand Tour brought a lot of well-off Americans (and other people) to Rome. It became like a rite of passage to study the arts and see different pieces of antiquity. Rome inspired writers, poets, and artists to create different works of art and most stayed and died in Rome.

No matter what your age, I encourage you to explore Rome. Peel back the different layers and expose yourself to the different times locked inside of the city.

Buona sera!
Krysta

“No Pictures, Please”: The Party House of Art

Allow me to introduce to you the Villa Borghese:

The Galleria Borghese is the museum – which is the entire house. This consists of twenty rooms completely filled with art.  
A very brief history: This used to be a party house for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V.  And not to throw the type of parties that we imagine in our heads, but elegant house parties where he took advantage of the time to show off all of the art that he had collected. It was called a villa suburbana, a party villa, at the edge of Rome.  All the art that he collected is still in the house and in various rooms for people to come see.

If you would have asked me previous to this trip if I liked art, I would have easily said yes. And then I walked into this museum and realized I didn’t even know a thing about art (aside from what I learned in Art I in high school). I had no idea what a “Carravagio” was and though I fancied myself an art-lover, I was quickly revealed as a fraud when I walked in the Galleria Borghese. Each room had a different theme and different stories and details to go along with it. And it was huge (of course). Which is why I can’t even imagine what a party would have been like in there during its prime.

We were given a ticket and then we headed inside. Once we got in we had to leave our purses and backpacks behind and cameras, too. No pictures were to be taken at all and there were signs in several languages sternly saying so. So, I didn’t even take my phone with me. Just a pen, my notebook and my class worksheet (this was part of my class, after all).

Statues were everywhere, paintings where kind of grouped together, and some rooms had an empty floor space where you could really see the size- and also the detail on the floor. Since Borghese himself was an avid fan of Caravaggio and Bernini you can find both artist’s works here. Since we weren’t allowed to take pictures, I was actually able to enjoy my tour a lot more. I was not worried about getting different shots of things and instead I was focusing on the art itself. The only downside to that is that I have a really bad memory – like really bad.  I can’t just flip through pictures and easily remember what was in the museum and which statues where in there and whatnot. I will say though, that the “no pictures” rule was complete bullshit because it was not reinforced. There were so many other tourists going around and snapping pictures of absolutely everything. And I grew protective and annoyed at them and I wanted to get in their faces and say “No pictures!” But I didn’t. Instead I felt sorry for them because they weren’t able to fully enjoy everything that they were looking at. I do remember that this was the first place that I actually paid attention to a Caravaggio painting (I know, I know…shame on me) and I have to say that I actually really like his stuff! The background to all of his paintings are black so you really know what he wants you to focus on. This is so different from other paintings before his time where there’s just so much going on within the frame and so much detail is in every little corner. It was refreshing, interesting and dark and I liked it.

My favorite was Bernini. His sculptures are unreal. Go and look at Pluto and Persephone (1622). You can find pictures online, but I will tell you first hand that those pictures do not do it justice. The marbled fingers of Pluto dig into Persephone’s stoned body as if it were skin. It gave me the chills. Especially because of the story Bernini is depicting.

Since I couldn’t take pictures inside, here I am standing outside after we were all done.

Not only do I have a fonder appreciation of art, I can now say that I know what a Caravaggio is and say that I have seen Bernini’s work up close and personal – and all of his work is absolutely amazing!

Ciao!
-Krysta

Fighting Back Tears at St. Peter’s Basilica

Day 10 of Layers of Rome: June 9, 2014

Like all Roman sites, there was a large crowd waiting to see the inside of St. Peter’s Basilica. Would it be as grand as TV shows and book claim it to be? Would a picture of Michelangelo’s “Pieta”(1547) be good enough to show family and friends on Facebook?

The line was a pretty lengthy one to get inside and there was no shade to stand under. All of us tourists alike took off our scarfs, blazers, shoulder coverings to bare the heat we were standing in.  St. Peter’s Square is one big open area (that could hold audiences of 80,000 or bigger). But the heat and the waiting was all worth it once we got inside and passed the church’s fashion police, who were very strict and did not allow any sinful shoulders or knees into the holy space. That was one big fashion no-no.

The obelisk that is outside in St. Peter’s Square. And then you can also see just one side of the colonnade.

Obelisk selfie in the hot hot heat.

The east facade of the church, which is the side that you enter. And we were getting closer and closer.

The detail is just absolutely beautiful. Easily my favorite picture.

Almost immediately after walking into St. Peter’s I had to fight back tears. At this point, we had all been with each other for over a week, but I was not going to cry in front of my classmates (or the other hundreds of strangers walking around). It was just so incredibly huge and overwhelming! I felt the tears forming in my eyes and quickly looked up to force the water back into eyes- which looked like an okay thing to do since there’s a lot to see on the ceiling as well. Standing there, I felt so tiny in the little world I belonged to. I also felt like I had accomplished a lot in getting myself to this church. So, I just stood there and thought, “Holy shit, I’m in St. Peter’s. And I paid for this. I got myself here. No help from anyone, this was all me.” It was a very overwhelming feeling and the more I thought about it the more I had to keep looking at the ceiling to stop the  tears from flowing down my cheeks.

Very brief history: The basilica that people see and visit today is not the original one. Pope Julius II commissioned Bramante to design the building that stands today. And it was a huge ordeal. Before the basilica we see today, St. Peter’s was just a modest building, built under Constantine in the 4th century. Throughout the years, whenever someone would try to change it, they would just keep adding onto it. But Pope Julius II, being the ambitious pope that he was, knocked it all down and started fresh. The dome, designed by Michelangelo, can be seen in the skyline today and Bernini was the mastermind who manifested the colonnade in St. Peter’s square. If you’re wondering why it is called a square when it actually looks like circle, it’s because Bernini used perfect measurements to create everything that when connected would produce a square. Brilliant, I know.

This is the ceiling I kept looking up at when I was fighting those tears back–and even when I wasn’t. A panoramic taken from my iPhone as I stood in the very wide aisle of the church.

This is Michelangelo’s “Pieta”. I don’t know how to put the accent mark, but there is one! It’s behind glass so yes, that did result in a glare. To be completely and brutally honest, I didn’t care too much for it. This was the first thing that Dr. Weber had us look at when we got inside and the only real reason we were taking time out to see it was because Michelangelo is the one that sculpted it. Which is really the only reason I took a picture of it and have it now to add to this, or else I would have just brushed right past it. It’s not even that great of a picture if I’m being honest with myself too.

This is what I saw coming into the church. I think that since this was the subject that I had presented on, it was even more surreal that I was actually standing inside when just a few weeks before I was only looking at pictures and looking up how Michelangelo was the designer of the dome (which I was more impressed with).

It took over 100 years to build the basilica!  100 years! And it actually makes a lot of sense when you’re standing inside, because there is so much detail and love put into this structure. It’s the world’s largest church, so it had to have taken some time and effort to be built. It’s just absolutely incredible. I know I’m using words like “huge” and “incredible”, “amazing”, “gigantic” and it’s probably not painting the best picture, but these places leave you at a loss for words. And really, words can’t really describe these places anyway. You have to go and see them for yourself. Even seeing pictures isn’t the same and does not evoke the same feelings you would get standing underneath the dome or standing in the aisle as hundreds of people are snapping photos in this super old building.

So the middle of the aisle, as you can see, is blocked off. That is because they have a marble marking of the other large church’s in the world that would fit into this place. Isn’t that just crazy? St. Peter’s is just totally showing off. So after however many meters the other smaller church is, there’s a marking on the ground with the name of the church, where it’s located and it tells you – up to this point so-and-so church will fit in here. It’s crazy.

If this doesn’t look like a holy picture, then I don’t know what does. The light from the sky is shining over the Baldachino by Bernini – this is another amazing piece of art from him. All the art work you see along the sides and along the arches are all mosaics. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Churches and buildings built today need to be built with this much attention to detail and workmanship. Nowadays people are too concerned with how fast something can be built and start functioning that they’ve lost sight of the beauty in detail and taking the time so that it can be the best version of itself.

I lose my mind over how extraordinary this place is. As I was walking around I was actually thinking about how lucky the people that get to clean it are. Yeah, you read that right. I’m jealous of the people that get to clean it. Because they get to be alone in here. And that would be amazing. And they know every little nook and every little uneven marble on the floor. And if I were alone cleaning this I would be dancing around the whole thing because it would be the biggest dance floor ever.  And then as I thought that, I shook my head because it’s still a church- a church where the new pope gets announced- and here I was thinking about playing loud music and dancing in it. I’m sure the people that get to clean it where excited about it for a few weeks and then once they really understood the size of the place their excitement dwindled.  I hope that’s not the case. Because it truly is beautiful and I hate that someone could get jaded about seeing this.

The magnificent dome.
How could someone not be in love with this site? You seriously have to stand inside. And you’ll feel like an ant like I did at the Colosseum as well.

Such a tourist thing of me to do. But it does give you insight on just how tall the Baldachino stands. Also, check out the guy on the right side of the photo and his anti-theft method of having his backpack in the front.
Very cool, man. But more importantly, look at those legs on the Baldichino!

I’m glad that I went with the group that I did. I feel like all of us were soaking it all in like sponges and I feel like one of the other groups (not gonna name any colleges) were just there to say they’ve been to Italy. If I could have been in that place alone it would have been a dream come true.

But like all good things, it had to come to an end. Apparently other people wanted to see it too and we couldn’t just selfishly stay there forever.

Go to Rome and go to St. Peter’s Basilica. And then have some gelato afterwards, because after standing in the sun that long, you deserve it!

 

Ciao!
-Krysta