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Ciao
from Rome, Italy!
Rome
is the "Eternal City," where loud motorcycles on crowded streets mingle
with stunning sculptures in magnificent piazzas as well as broken pillars leftover
from an empire 
built
more than two thousand years ago. Our Roman experience was filled with gorgeous
art, delicious food and a brand new friendship with a Hollywood star and her awesome
husband. We stood within 10 feet of the pope. We also had the opportunity to see
the world-famous opera singer, Andrea Bocelli, perform at a huge demonstration
honoring the United States of America. And after that same gathering we met three
New York firefighters, including the new Fire Chief. We are proud to be Americans,
but if we had the opportunity, we could certainly live in Rome. We would HAVE
to move here in order to finish seeing all of the important sights this city has
to offer!
JOE:
Wow. It's impossible to describe how many times we were left breathless to the
point where all we could say was, "wow." We are black and blue from pinching ourselves
(you know, to make 
sure
we were not dreaming). We probably walked a dozen miles every day and, most of
the time, spent the entire day from early morning to late night out and about.
But it was never enough to see everything we had planned. Interestingly enough,
it's not always the big, famous sights that make your day. My favorite thing about
Rome: you could get absolutely lost, look up from your map and see the most stunning
statue or fountain in a beautiful piazza. "Oh, look, there's a church," we would
sometimes say. "Let's look inside." And once we did, we would be bowled over once
again to find an amazing 17th century mural on the ceiling or some other world-class
work of art.
JENNI:
They're like geodes, these churches. Just like those little rocks, the churches
were not too remarkable on the outside, but jaw-dropping on the inside. Each one
was a beautiful surprise. In fact, all of Rome was a 
beautiful
surprise - as Joe says, every time we turned a corner we found larger-than-life
statues staring at us. My favorite street corner was an ordinary little intersection
on via Quatro Fontana. But it was extraordinarily graced with four gargantuan
reclining gods in each corner eating grapes. And the sheer size of Rome's most
famous sights kept me coming back just to marvel again and again.
Initially we thought five days in Rome would be fine. How wrong we were. This city is so stuffed full of treasures, ancient and modern, that five days stretched into eleven. And I realize how lucky we are - most travelers to Rome don't get the option of eleven days in one city, but all along our trip we have been determined to take things slowly, gaze as long as we like, and not just stop to smell the roses, but to also learn something about those roses. And by the time we left, I wished for more days to see the things we never got around to. I guess we'll just have to come again!
And next time we'll have to read up more on the history of Rome. There's so much to learn about the land where the ancient Romans took what the Greeks created and made it all bigger, better, and fancier. Where early Christians who were members of a mere cult were fed to lions; their sacrifices eventually helping usher in Roman Catholicism, one of the largest religions on earth. Where the Dark Ages touched for a time, then were dashed away by the brilliance of the Renaissance. It's reading material enough for many years, and will make our next visit here all the better! And imagining something better than this stay in Rome will be a real stretch for the imagination!
On
the 50,000 Italian lire bill, there's a picture of a young-looking guy with bad
hair. That's Bernini, the gifted sculptor who created many of Rome's most famous
outdoor decorations and fountains during the Renaissance (like St. Peter's Square)
and sculptures designed to be on display in some rich guy's garden. Through his
work, I discovered that I really enjoy art carved into marble. The Borghese Museum
houses many of his most incredible works, and unfortunately pictures aren't allowed.
I would stare at the way the marble looks like skin or the way a leg looks suspended
in mid-air until I lost track of time. I so badly wanted to touch them! The couch
that a goddess reclines on looked so very real it couldn't have been hard as rock.
It had to have been at least a little soft, but I will never know. Non tocare.
JOE: "Non tocare" means, "don't touch." Since I lived in Italy when I was a child, I told Jenni that "non tocare" is one of the few Italian phrases I can remember. "Basta!" or "stop" was another phrase I remember. I was a pesky kid. Maybe that came from visiting so many museums.
JENNI:
Rome's most impressive museum, of course, is inside the Vatican. Technically its
own separate nation, the Vatican includes St. Peter's Square and Basilica, a housing
and office area for the Catholic Church headquarters, as well as the giant museum
complex. Completely surrounded by Rome and marked off 
with
super-high brick walls, the Vatican is so small that I could easily see the entire
country of the Vatican from atop St. Peter's Dome.
The
Vatican Museum owes its world-class collection of famous art to a series of popes
during the Renaissance (1400-1500's) who commissioned, bribed, and/or threatened
such artists as Raphael and Michelangelo to create masterpieces for the church.
The Museum is set up on a one-way route that takes you through some rooms with
less famous art inside - but exquisite art nonetheless! Then it's a good thirty-minute
walk along the route without stopping to look at anything else before you arrive
at the famous Raphael rooms. These rooms were a series of personal rooms for the
then-pope with frescoes (art painted directly on the walls and ceilings) by the
artist Raphael. These frescoes tell stories, make political statements, act as
self-portraits and teach lessons, while paying homage to things of personal import
to the painter.
This
Raphael fresco (on the left) showing Aristotle and Plato discussing their different
philosophies, pays homage to fellow artist Michelangelo shown in the 
front
with his head in his hand. Raphael and Michelangelo were working on their different
projects at the same time - Raphael on his rooms and Michelangelo on the Sistine
Chapel. It's said that the two masters had wildly different styles. Raphael would
paint wearing fine clothes and nibbling fresh fruit while he created. But Michelangelo
was kind of a mad artist; attacking his work with a fury of inspiration, not bothering
to bathe or eat while in the throes of such passion. Each admired the other's
work, keeping their rivalry on a professional level. Raphael added Michelangelo
to his fresco once he'd caught a glimpse of the unfinished ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel. More than 500 years later, we got to see it too.
When we finally arrived there, we first saw the underside of two hundred people's chins. Everyone was looking up, and then so did we - and saw a truly beautiful and awesome sight. The ceiling is gorgeous and vivid. The blues are ethereal, the skin tones real, the reds rich and deep. The perceived nooks and crannies are crammed with perfect specimens of the male body, and the perspective used to paint them make them seem ready to fall down on top of you. The famous panel showing God granting life to Adam is as beautiful as the pictures show, only ten times better. The two long walls (not created by Michelangelo) are painted with a series of scenes that show the similarities between the life of Jesus Christ and Moses, including one panel that explicitly depicts the power of the papacy and the church. The far wall is the famous Last Judgement, also painted by Michelangelo about thirty years later than the ceiling. By this time, the Reformation of the Catholic Church was well underway, and the people were depressed and disenchanted with the church. This wall is part of the Counter-Reformation, when the Church moved to re-assert its power and import, and shows the awesome power of an angry Christ in the Second Coming, yanking people from their earthly graves and beckoning them to heaven or dashing them into a terrifying hell. I can see how this fresco would serve to inspire a need for salvation, and therefore trust, in the Church.
By the time we left the Sistine Chapel, we were dizzy from gazing skyward and our necks hurt.
JOE: Controversy has followed the recent restoration of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. After the restorers finished peeling away centuries of dirt and other gunk, the paintings turned out to be extremely vibrant and colorful. Some critics say they're too colorful, suggesting the restorers removed too much of the lacquer that had been applied centuries ago, which now MAY have made the frescoes more colorful and bright than Michelangelo ever intended. Those critics are calling it the "Benneton Michelangelo," after the famous bright, happy clothing line. It does seem the colors on the ceiling are that much more vivid than any photo I've ever seen, but they look very appropriate, I think. Unfortunately, the restorers forced the Vatican to sign a deal saying no photos can be taken in the Sistine Chapel. Bastards.
By the way, the Sistine Chapel is where they choose a new pope. Black smoke means the College of Cardinals has not yet finished deciding. White smoke means a new pope has been chosen. The last time that happened was 1978. A new ceremony might be forthcoming quite soon.
Anyway,
yes, I admit it. I spent four hours in these museums. And I loved it. Sure, there
were some rooms I could do without (like the "miscellaneous room" that Jenni spent
time browsing through) but I really enjoyed this tour. I loved the sculptures,
like the Laocoon group (the sculpture on the left), and especially Michelangelo's
ceiling and Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel. I also liked the Raphael paintings.
Raphael was the most famous painter of his time. Michelangelo, of course, is the
superstar of modern experts but, for hundreds of years, Raphael was considered
the best. We WERE allowed to take pictures of Raphael's paintings but it doesn't
do justice to the real live thing.
JENNI:
I've heard about St. Peter's Square and the Basilica before and I've even seen
pictures of the Pope blessing thousands of worshippers from his little balcony.
But I was wholly unprepared for the sheer size. They're simply huge. St. Peter's
Square is longer than three football fields end-to-end. The bulging semi-circular
area is 
surrounded
by giant, thick columns, and two fountains that would dwarf any piazza are planted
opposite each other in the middle. It's vast, and thank goodness for that, because
it prepares you for the cavernous interior of the Basilica. Imagine walking into
a building (granted, a building with a magnificent façade, but a building nonetheless)
and a vast space that immediately makes you feel small is presented to you, and
you just keep looking and looking for the ending. It seems like infinity. When
I walked inside the Basilica our first evening in Rome, the candles were all lit
and organ music was playing. A weekly mass was underway in the front. It was nearly
empty, and hushed in respect for the service. It made for a very powerful experience.
JOE:
The Pope's home is just glorious, and we had the opportunity to get a glimpse
of the pontiff himself in an "audience." We had no idea what to expect from an
"audience with the Pope" but we carefully got tickets the day before from a Swiss
Guard in his colorful orange and blue tweedle-dee costume. It turns out our audience
with the Pope John Paul II - perhaps the greatest pope who ever lived - was shared
with about 10,000 other people; Catholic pilgrims from all over the world.
After
passing through a gauntlet of metal detectors, we were ushered into a large room
that is rather simply decorated with no crosses, nor any of the other flamboyance
on proud display in the rest of the Vatican. At precisely 10:30 AM, a very frail
Pope John Paul II arrived to enthusiastic applause. Aboard a wheeled short staircase,
he trucked up the aisle, kissing babies and greeting the multitudes of pilgrims
who have come to see him from every continent on Earth. It is sad to know that
we are seeing perhaps the greatest Pope
in history in his last days. He seems barely able to move and his speech is markedly
slurred. But he also seemed buoyed by the energy of the crowd. With the help of
several priests, he read special greetings in six or seven different languages.
Groups from different countries began to belt out sporadic cheers and songs, occasionally
interrupting the Pope! The ceremony is surprisingly upbeat and enthusiastic; in
sharp contrast to the somber, serious tone we were expecting of this event. At
one point, a group from my hometown of San Antonio spontaneously began singing
"God Bless America!" I choked back my tears while I sang along as loudly as I
could.
After the formal ceremony, a long line gathered for an opportunity to pose for a picture with the Pope as well as kiss his ring and receive his blessing. (We think you have to have a special invitation to get up close like that.) Another line was filled with wheelchair-bound pilgrims; many of whom are carrying items like rosaries and statuettes that are to be blessed by the Pope. Both of us were moved to tears as we watched the faces of these physically and mentally impaired folks. They were positively beaming with the experience of having met the leader of their faith. For a moment they were smiling and forgetting the hardships they must endure on a daily basis. While neither of us is very religious, we were smiling big too: lifted up by the positive energy. We fully recognize that just being in that room was a dream come true for many of the people attending. We feel very lucky indeed.