Day Two - St Peter's

After a late breakfast we headed to the tabaccheria for Metro tickets and then headed toward the Vatican. Here I am showing one lovely mosaic on the way to the Vatican and the rest are photos of St Peter's with some identifications but no commentary.

Remember, you can click on the photos to embiggen and see detail. (My friends and I have declared the embiggen IS SO a real word, so there.)

St Teresa of Avila when not in ecstasy

Saint Andrew, for all you Scots, Greeks, and Russians

Saint Helena

Saint Veronica

Altar in the chapel of St Gregory the Great

Altar with relics of St Gregory the Great

St Peter

Because I was taking photos without flash, the photos appear much lighter than what the eye sees. I was actually struck by how dark St Peter's seemed compared to what I expected. I realized that the papal masses I saw on television over the years were well lit and most photos had probably compensated much as my camera did. The crowd was dense but well behaved. The Pietà was being cleaned for JP2's beatification and curtained off so we could not see it.

I was beginning to realize how effective baroque statuary is with its sense of movement and drama. I also emerged thanking God for Martin Luther. Prior to the trip I wrote to my Baptist sister and said that her brother, on the rather Catholic end of the Episcopalian spectrum, would be a raging Protestant at the Vatican. And I was.

Perhaps it should be said at the outset that I did not go to Rome as a pilgrim in any sense. For all that I love church history this was a cultural and aesthetic trip for me. Coming with that stance it is not surprising that few things struck me as intrinsically spiritual while there. It is difficult for me to see St Peter's as designed for anything other than impressing visitors with the power of the papacy. Sorry, folks. My mystical and sacramental nature is deeply Catholic but it is very un-Roman. This is why I had, for decades, a love/hate relationship with the Catholic Church that I resolved by becoming a Reformed Catholic, i.e., Episcopalian.

More aspects of my now somewhat quirky spirituality will emerge as I narrate more of this trip.

I did go into the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament to pray and I prayed for family and friends, local, scattered, and online. Some who read here were remembered by name. I prayed a decade of the Rosary, having bought one for a coworker, though I did not take it out of the package, was just aware of it in my camera case as I recited the prayers.

After St Peter's we had lunch at the Caffè del Morro. Then we headed to the Vatican Museums for which we had tickets in advance, thus avoiding the line that can take hours. And that is another post.

Ci vediamo!

--the BB

The Rest of Day One - Rome

Sunday, 17 April 2011

I checked my notes and see that our first lunch in Rome included maccheroni ammatriciana for Bill (large tubular noodles in a tomato, pancetta, and pecorino sauce) and a pizza capricciosa for me (with mushrooms, artichokes, olives, and prosciutto). I know my foodie friends need details such as this.


After lunch we returned to the hotel for maps and my cameras and headed out for our walk (partly described in the previous post). Here is a view looking down Via della Purificazione toward the Piazza Barberini.


For those of you who did not take Latin in high school or study Roman history, SPQR stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus (the Senate and the Roman People). You have seen it in many a bathrobe drama, often on the standards of Roman soldiers. It is still used today as you can see here.


The Roman aqueducts not only brought water to the city in ancient times, they still power the great fountains and the ubuquitous little fountains on streets everywhere. Here is one we passed every day.


Those who recall my photos of New Orleans know that I love architectural details. Check out the grill work above this door.


The door is located on the Via delle Quattro Fontane opposite the Palazzo Barberini (below). Here you see the statuary and gates.


This is the palazzo proper. It is the National Gallery of Classical Art (I take liberty translating Arte Antica as Classical Art because "antique" sounds odd in English here).


Maffei Barberini became Pope Urban VIII and had a palace built. One of the architects was Bernini. Below is the entrance loggia.


The stairs leading up toward the gardens:


The staircase:

From the museum website I have snaffled some samples for you:

Titian's Venus and Adonis (post 1553)


Andrea del Sarto's Sacra Famiglia (1528-29)


Hans Holbein's Henry VIII (1540)


Raphael's La Fornarina (1520). She was his mistress, though there is some question whether this work was by his hand.


We had visited the museum while waiting for Santa Maria della Vittoria to open. Inside the church I prayed and this was my Palm Sunday worship. If you read this blog, you were prayed for.

The church was begun in 1605 as a chapel dedicated to Saint Paul for the Discalced Carmelites. After the Catholic victory at the battle of White Mountain in 1620, which reversed the Reformation in Bohemia, the church was rededicated to the Virgin Mary. Turkish standards captured at the 1683 siege of Vienna hang in the church, as part of this theme of victory.

The order itself funded the building work until the discovery in the excavations of the Borghese Hermaphroditus. Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, appropriated this sculpture but in return funded the rest of work on the facade and granted the order his architect Giovanni Battista Soria. These grants only came into effect in 1624, and work was completed two years later. [Wikipedia]

Here is a ceiling shot I managed to get.

The fame of this church lies in a Bernini masterpiece. In the Cornaro Chapel, to the left of the high altar, may be found St Teresa in Ecstasy.

The statues depict a moment described by Saint Teresa of Avila in her autobiography, where she had the vivid vision of an angel piercing her heart with a golden shaft, causing her both immense joy and pain. The flowing robes and contorted posture abandon classical restraint and repose to depict a more passionate, almost voluptuous trance. [Wikipedia]

My close-ups did not come out well so I share one shot from a distance for the dramatic context.


Here is a photo I took from the web:


From there we headed down to the Piazza della Repubblica and sat our weary selves down to enjoy some gelato and water. Then we visited le Terme di Diocleziano (The Baths of Diocletian), now divided between the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli and one of the sites of the Rome National Museum. The baths were built in 306 AD and Michelangelo redesigned the church in 1563, though 18th century remodeling changed it greatly. The scale is stunning.


A colossal statue named Meditation:


The oculus:


We had a serious nap after all this, then went to dinner at Ristorante Crispi 19. We had a bottle of Lacrima del Morro, from the Marches, and a bottle of Pellegrino. Bill dined on Amberjack tuna on a bed of mushrooms and tomatoes with a topping like shredded filo dough for crunch. Spread around this were two sauces: one a basil oil and the other tuna-based. I had a medallion of beef with a crisped polenta topping and a "lasagne" of potatoes, paired with spinach, and basil oil and a potato "sauce." I will quote from journal on dessert.

For dolci Bill had a layer of finely chopped cooked apples with a slightly nut flavored mousse, pistacchio gelato [using the Italian spelling here] and a caramel chocolate sauce. I had a "chocolate lava cake" with gelato on a crisped candied thin slice of Seville orange (awesome!).

After dinner we walked to la Trinità dei Monti, down the Scalinata (the Spanish Steps) and from the Piazza di Spagna back to the hotel "by way of the Inquisition."

Here is a view from the top of the Spanish Steps at night.


And here is the City College of the Propagation of the Faith. (Sent a chill down my spine, I tell you. Like walking past KGB offices in Russia.)


By the time we got back and I finished writing up the day it was 10 PM local time and bedtime.

By now y'all know why we came home tired. This was day one.

--the BB

First meal in Rome

Having made it to Rome on Sunday, 17 April, we braved the Leonardo Express from Fumicino Airport to the Roma Termini (not so bad) and the taxi from the station to the hotel (terrifying). We got a little bit settled and then walked up to the top of the street and around the corner to La Scala Ristorante/Pizzeria. There we sat outdoors on a glorious day, had our first true Italian pizza (nice!), and enjoyed this view looking down the block toward the Via Veneto. We went back to this restaurant at the end of our stay in Rome. Nice food, lovely wines, and the staff was easy on the eyes.

After lunch we took a walk down to the Piazza Barberini, viewed the Fontana del Tritone, then hiked up the slopes of the Quirinal Hill to le Quattro Fontane.

Me in front of the Fontana del Tritone, Piazza Barberini, Roma

Le Quattro Fontane, the Four Fountains, one at each corner of the intersection

I will discuss the museum and churches in another post. This, mind you, was our first outing.

On the way to Sta Maria della Vittoria we saw this imposing Moses at yet another fountain, recalling Moses striking the rock and bringing forth water.


Before that we had passed the Ministry of Defense. Rather a different feel than that of the Pentagon, don't you think?


And when we reached the Piazza della Repubblica we had our first gelato and rested a bit.

I still have to recount our first museum and church and that evening we walked to the Spanish Steps and back.

Battling jet lag all this week, not getting enough sleep, and trying to get over a cold, so I am slow posting photos. But they will come.

Ciao, amici!

--the BB

The last evening in Florence

Here's your initial post card, folks. I am sorting through about 1200 photos so give me some time. Also there is jet lag. We had a great time, saw about three churches and/or museums per day, walked everywhere, and both came down with colds at the end. Tomorrow: The Mikado at Popejoy here in Albuquerque. I may suffer a surfeit of culture.

For those who missed it on Facebook, I made the comment to Bill that if I see one more effing Madonna I'm gonna puke. One can see too much Renaissance art at one time.

Lots to remember and ponder. We ate well, consistently, and came home with a few extra pounds. I want to cook more, so that part of the inspiration worked. There were statues that made us weep.

Before any more posts on the trip to Italy, discussed for three decades and finally taken, I want to thank two of my high school teachers who spurred the interest and gave me the background to appreciate what I saw. Thank you Betty Wiley and Alan Amend, Latin and humanities, respectively.

That I could view Bernini's statue of Aeneas bearing his father Anchises as his son Ascanius tags along, leaving the ruins of Troy for an unknown future, I could quote lines from Vergil's Aeneid in Latin and feel the tears streaming down my cheeks. Mrs. Wiley arranged it so Joel Steinberg and I could take Vergil in our junior year by passing Latin 2 as a do-it-yourself summer course. The seeds she planted took root.

Mr. Amend, if I remember correctly I had to do a presentation on Hans Memling and was not that excited about him. One portrait in the Uffizi undid me and I humbly repent. Thank you for teaching us about Renaissance art and how to even conceptualize and discuss art.

--the BB

Greetings from Florence

Yep, after talking for three decades about going to Italy, El Cuervito and I are finally in la bella Italia. Walked over what must be 2\3 of Rome last week and now we are in Florence. Photos to follow after our return.

Buona Pascua a tutti!

My message to the Republicans in Congress:

You are domestic terrorists writ large. There was a time citizens knew how to treat you.

--the BB