Contents Ritorno ................................................................................................................ 2 Not Why Rome is Not Called Reme .......................................................................... 6 Mythical Kings ...................................................................................................... 9 And to the Republic for which it Stood ........................................ 14 The Republic (Part II): The Struggle of the Orders and the Three Punic Wars ........... 19 The Roman Revolution ......................................................................................... 27 The Other, Lesser, Ides of March .......................................................................... 32 The Third Triumverate: Octavius, Octavian, and Augustus ...................................... 40 Nothing Succeeds Like Succession ........................................................................ 48 Religion of Rome................................................................................................. 53 Rome and its Water ............................................................................................ 59 The Introduction is Over, the Epic Begins ............................................................... 67 Sabato, 10 luglio .............................................................................................. 76 Addio Toronto ..................................................................................................... 76 Domenica, 11 luglio .......................................................................................... 78 Arrivo ................................................................................................................ 78 The Palazzo Olivia ............................................................................................... 79 Dr Gaber's Cure for Jetlag, Rheumatism, and Phlegm .............................................. 83 Digression #1: Il Piazza Navona .......................................................................... 90 Lunedì, 12 luglio .............................................................................................. 97 The First Morning: One Church Scaffolded, Two Shuttered ...................................... 97 A Visit to the French Embassy ............................................................................ 105 Across the Tiber................................................................................................ 112 Finally in Trastevere .......................................................................................... 116 Martedì, 13 luglio ........................................................................................... 125 Sant‘Andrea della Valle, Ruins, Turtles, and an Opera ............................................ 126 Il Gesù Complete and the Campidoglio, Part I ....................................................... 134 Il Campidoglio (Part II) ...................................................................................... 143 Insulae, a Wedding Cake, Mussolini, and Windswept Marble ................................... 151

1

Mozart, Caravaggio and Two More Churches......................................................... 159 Mercoledi, 14 luglio ........................................................................................ 161 Digression #2: Michelangelo Merisi, Called Caravaggio ......................................... 166 Sant‘Ignazio di Loyola and the Galleria Doria-Pamphilj .......................................... 176 En Route to Santa Maria della Vittoria‘s Cornaro Chapel ......................................... 185

Ritorno It is a warm, sunny morning last June. Steven and Randi are enjoying coffees and croissants on the Champs Elysee in Paris gazing respectfully at the Haussmann buildings across the wide boulevard. Everything is serene, everything is congenial. Later that day we planned to wander up to the Arc de Triomphe and then take the omnipresent Metro to absurdly picturesque Montmartre. We are prototypical characters in a trite Hollywood movie about North American visitors touring the most romantic city on the back lot. We knew we would later be having a nicely prepared and presented lunch at some outdoor café atop the Mount of Martyrs with a view of the most elegantly planned city in the world. Where else could we hope to be? We wanted to be in Rome. Even before we departed Paris we knew that this could not be our ultimate trip to Europe. I am rapidly depleting my physical capacity to manage these visits in a manner that I demand. That is, I need to be able to walk anywhere I want for as long as I want. I need to be able to plan and shell out for a trip without worrying too much about the unexpected inability to take it. A toothache could, unsought, join us. My beloved kidney stones that have minded their own business for almost 25 years could suddenly decide to go up that long, lonesome road, concentrating my mind awfully. In some measure paranoid? Probably. Increasingly possible as I approach my mid-60s? Also probably. Rome began to call in on (but not occupy) our thoughts during the first few days in Paris when it rained constantly. Roman summers are reliably sunny, dry, and warm (some would say hot, and they would be correct) and escaping soggy Paris was the appealing impetus that initially drove our plans for July of 2010. When the weather finally turned and springtime in Paris lived up to its lyrics, thoughts of Rome did not evaporate, although their immediacy receded. Our bags were barely unpacked back in Toronto when we began to seriously discuss when we would go to Rome for what would likely be our final visit to Europe. We had the usual constraints of Randi's work schedule but could choose among any month between May and September so long as we went during the middle two weeks of the month. August was immediately rejected because that month Romans desert their city 2

for the beaches in huge numbers leaving shuttered restaurants and shops behind. I'm not fond of travelling in September because the hours of daylight are all too brief. It rained too often in Rome in May. July won out over June because there were significantly fewer tourists and it is the driest month of the year. Of course, tourists avoid July in Rome because it is also the hottest month of the year with the temperature passing 30° most days. But we had fought the summer wars in Florida for many years and Roman July‘s are not quite at that level of discomfort. We were convinced we could cope with the heat in what is a not terribly green city with far fewer cooling trees than one finds in, say, Paris by hitting the road very early each morning (churches open their doors well before 9 AM) and skulking back in the early afternoon to take a nap in our air-conditioned room before venturing out again about 4 PM. Eating dinner at an outdoor patio in the early evening with the sun beginning its nap is an appealing image to savour. So we will be leaving for Rome on Saturday night, July 10. When we last flew there in 2007 we divided our trip into two equal parts: five days in Rome, five days in Florence (with a day trip to Siena included). This time it will be 11 days in Rome as we don‘t depart until Thursday morning, July 22. We might take a morning bus to Tivoli to see Hadrian's Villa and Villa D'Este and perhaps another morning board a train to Ostia Antica. Other than that, Rome will have to suffice for our amusement and edification. The when proved easy, the macro where resolved without any difficulty, leaving just the micro where to occupy our time (there is only one ―choice‖ for the how). That process proved more complicated than it should have, and its conclusion underlined for us of what kind of travellers we have been and hoped we always would be. Our first instinct was to look for an apartment rather than a hotel room or pensione. We had had an excellent experience renting an apartment in Paris and it had the advantages of a sitting room, a tiny but adequate kitchen, a dining area, and the absence of someone waking us up during our siesta to clean our rooms. It did not take very much enquiry for us to discover that, like Paris, Rome has an massive choice of short-term rental apartments in all neighbourhoods, in all price ranges, and in all configurations. On the whole, Roman apartments were slightly nicer and slightly cheaper than those in Paris, another selling point. The cost was essentially equal to a two or three star hotel room, although we were on our own for breakfast. I spent a few days of winnowing down the enormous number of apartments to under a manageable one hundred when we suddenly switched course. We became aware of feeling that an apartment was riskier than a hotel room. 3

You don't have to research very deeply into rental review sites to find agents with keys that failed to show up, filthy bathrooms, apartments that look nothing like the pictures on the website, noise from the street below that is deafening, noisy, partying neighbours, air conditioning that is too weak for July, washers that don't wash and dryers that don't dry. Since there is no front desk you have to rely upon the kindness of the rental agent for proper resolution and redress. None of this had come to pass in Paris but our apprehension was unfeigned. So we began to review Rome's 1500 hotels that met our criteria. Unfortunately, our criteria kept changing. We needed a rooftop Terrace to eat breakfast on that had a nice view. After I excluded those that didn't have one, we realised that we would be spending very little time at breakfast so that we could start off early every day. We needed something near a subway line (not easy to find in a city with only two lines because digs keep running into archaeological sites) until we realised that we would hardly ever be taking the subway in a very walkable city. We needed a separate sitting room until we found out how much suites cost. We needed a balcony until we realised that it would remain essentially unused during the heat of the day. A torturous and lengthy search which included complicated matrices and detailed documentation drove the options down to about twenty hotels which were then written with a catalogue of precise questions. Finally, a winner emerged: the Hotel Santa Maria in the picturesque but slightly dingy area called Trastevere because it is on the other side of the Tevere River (aka Tiber).

http://www.htlsantamaria.com/english/index.htm . This is a modest 19 room hotel located in a 16th century cloister were all rooms are on the ground floor and open to an orange tree filled garden where breakfast and afternoon antipasto are served. Previous guests and guidebooks have raved about the quality of the service and reliability of the establishment. Perfect. We made our reservations and were done. Except that I persisted in looking online at other hotels because I had some, inexplicable, sense of discomfort with our seemingly impeccable choice. That proved an endless undertaking until I wrote the hotel where we had stayed in 2007 and found a really good deal on a room in a place

4

where we knew we would be comfortable. Both of us were relieved at the sudden change in direction. Without understanding why. Until that evening when we tried to comprehend why we would rather stay in a place we already knew (essentially doubling back) instead of the Santa Maria which comfortably met all of our final criteria. It was Randi who had the insight: we were being timid and fearful, so afraid of making a mistake, that we were willing to cheat ourselves of what all evidence pointed to would have been a superior choice. Randi had the initial insight, but I carried it further. The ―reason‖ we had switched to the Hotel Opera was essentially the same reason that we had initially rejected an apartment. Timidity and unease. Not usually two words that describe our previous travels to Rome or anywhere else. So it was back to the Internet seeking out apartments, narrowing down the hundreds of reasonable options, creating new, convoluted Excel spreadsheets, writing owners/agents with a list of questions, and studying maps. Relying upon user reviews on two very trustworthy sites whose reviews are much less likely to have been written by the establishments themselves (as happens on some ―review‖ sites), Slowtravel http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/vr/list.asp?order=agency&sort=asc&2sort=regionforlist& 3sort=reviewnumber&r=Rome ) and Trip Advisor http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotelsg187791-c3-Rome_Lazio-Hotels.html I found and decided upon: Il Palazzo Olivia http://www.palazzo-olivia.it/ which is a structure owned by a lovely couple (Stefano and Carla) in a magnificent location just a block from the finest square in Rome, the Piazza Navona, and two blocks from the Market Square, Campo de‘ Fiori. While ―Palazzo‖ is perhaps a bit overblown, they do own the seven apartments (two per floor) that make up the building and have an office downstairs in which Carla keeps an eye on things during the day and resolves any problems that might occur. We are renting a one-bedroom apartment, the Basilio (all apartments are named after characters from Rossini's "Barber of Seville" which was written in 1816 across the street from the Olivia on the same Via dei Leutari). Don Basilio, a bass, is an impoverished music teacher and is 5

a minor role. The Almaviva and Figaro apartments were either too big or already rented for July. We cancelled the reservations at both the Santa Maria and the Opera (with no penalty, else I‘d not have made them) and fired off a 30% PayPal deposit (non-refundable -"timid?" No longer!) to Carla. As Gaius Julius Caesar is said to have said when he crossed the Rubicon, "Jacta alea est", the die is cast.

Not Why Rome is Not Called Reme When the actor Albert Finney, as Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, began his comprehensive solution of the crime in "The Murder on the Orient Express" he offered two alternatives: a simple one and a complicated one. Similarly, I will offer two explanations for the founding of Rome. First, the simple one. When the valiant warrior Aeneas fled the city of Troy carrying his son and father (in the 12th century BC) after its fall he was advised by his father to settle down in Latium, in central Italy. He married the daughter of a local monarch leading to a conflict after which his son founded the city of Alba

Longa (about 22 km from present-day Rome and where the Pope has his summer residence) and began a dynasty. Moving forward 350 years or so we come to Prince Amulius who deposed his older brother King Numitor (the legends are conveniently combined by making Numitor a 6

direct descendant of Aneas) of Alba Longa, also taking the prudent and traditional precaution of murdering his sons. He forced Numitor‘s daughter, Rhea Silvia, to become a Vestal Virgin which would seriously reduce the possibility of her bearing children, as a Vestal who cohabits with a man is put to death by being buried alive. However, the god Mars sweet talked and wooed Rhea with the usual result, a pair of twins, Romulus and Remus. In a story similar to that of Moses, a servant of Amulius‘s disobeyed his master's command to have the newborns put to death and they were placed in a reed basket in the River Tiber where they were found by a wolf that nursed them and brought them up in his cave. During their childhood a shepherd found them and raised them as his own sons. When they grew up the boys murdered Amulius and restored Numitor to his throne. That task completed, the twins decided to found a city on the Tiber, near where the wolf found them. There are many versions as to how Romulus became the first King of Rome, while Remus became but a murder victim. My favourite is an argument over auguries which were used to determine who would rule. First Remus saw six vultures from the Aventine Hill but then Romulus announced he saw twelve from the Palatine Hill. Remus thought he should be King because he was the first to see the birds. Romulus argued that while Remus was first, he saw the most. As is customary in these family discussions of succession one brother soon found himself dead and the other a King. The 17th century Bishop James Ussher analysed the King James Bible and determined (essentially based on begatting) that creation occurred in 4004 BC. The Romans were more precise: their city was founded not only in 753 BC, but specifically on April 21. If Remus had won the debate would it have been called Reme? No, not at all. The reality is that the historian Marcus Terentius Varro (116 - 27 BC) who was essentially responsible for determining the date, and other historians who quite liked the heroic founding story and embellished it willy-nilly, probably named Romulus after Rome, to complete the story. Where does the name actually come from? There are several hypotheses, apart from the Romulus legend. Some have suggested an Etruscan word, "rhome", meaning "hard", cognate with Greek "ῥώμη, rhōmē", strength, vigor. Another suggests that it is named after Roma, who is supposed to have been the daughter of Aeneas or Evander. In other words, we don't really know. That is the simple explanation and of course it is a bucket of hooey. Even though the historical record is very, very far from complete and the contemporary sources are very, very far from reliable, the complicated explanation, while much duller, has the advantage of reasonability.

7

There is some archaeological evidence that suggests that settlement at Rome began as early as 1500 BC. There were two excellent geographical reasons why Rome would be attractive to settlers: first, it overlooked a ford in the Tiber near an island in the stream enabling any group of pioneers to control northsouth traffic between Etruria and Latium as well as east-west traffic the interior to the coast. The island, like the Ile de la Cité in Paris‘s Seine, was easy to defend by blocking the bridges. In addition, the land around the island was hilly (remember the Seven Hills of Rome?), defensible, and wellwatered. Evidence of separate villages around Rome has been found. It is believed that until the eighth century BC Rome developed as a series of small villages on neighbouring hilltops. At some stage, unknown to historians, these communities coalesced into a single community and Rome, as an entity, was born. Over the last 100 years there have been spectacular finds on the Palatine Hill revealing foundations (really post holes) of wooden huts dating to about 750 BC. One of the huts has been called, with absolutely no evidence or even probability, "The Hut of Romulus" although as of yet no ancient carved wooden plaque or mailbox has been found to welcome you to "the Romulus‘s Hut.‖

8

In my next lecture we will pick up the story with the historically unprovable period of the Kings of Rome, which began with Romulus in 753 and ended with the beginnings of the Republic in 509 with the expulsion of the Tarquin dynasty by, among others, Lucius Junius Brutus, a direct descendant of that Brutus of ―et tu Brute?‖ fame whose actions led in no small part to the end of the Republic. Before I go perhaps this would be a useful time to explain the form of Roman names. Typical Roman names consisted of three parts: the praenomen, or given name; the nomen, or clan name; and the cognomen, or family name. Some would have no cognomen, others would have two. For example, Gaius Julius Caesar was of the Julian clan. Augustus was born Gaius Octavius Thurinis of the Octavian clan but changed his name to Gaius Julius Caesar when he was adopted by his uncle. An honour can increase the size of your name and fame: Gnaeus Pompeus was permitted to add ―Magnus‖ (the great) to his name after some impressive military victories and Octavian was, in 34 BC, awarded by the Senate the honorific ―Augustus‖ (revered one). In short, Julius was not Caesar‘s first name but rather signified his membership in the Julian clan. Women were easier to name. They had but one name and took the name of their fathers. Caesar's daughter was named Julia. Augustus's sister was named Octavia and his daughter Julia. The same for Livia (the daughter of Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus), Agrippina, and Cornelia. If you had the misfortune to have more than one daughter, they took the same name sometimes differentiated by Julia Major and Julia Minor. In short, history rarely refers to daughters at all unless their marriages were noteworthy. As otherwise inconsequential members of the household there was little time to waste on naming a daughter something distinctive or personal.

Mythical Kings All Roman sources agree that Rome was initially ruled by Kings. The major source for the Roman Regal period is the historian Livy (Titus Livius, 59 BC-17 AD) about whom next to nothing is known and whose magnum opus is the "History of Rome from Its Foundation." Livy himself had scant access to original sources but did have available now-lost written accounts, but those sources were written well after the Regal period and can hardly be relied upon. The Crown was not hereditary. Kings were chosen by election from among the Council of the Nobles, an early version of the Senate, and then ratified by adult male citizens meeting in a group (the Curiate Assembly). Between Kings a temporary officer called an ―interrex‖ held office. The Kings had authority over three areas of government: military affairs, administration of justice, and religion. Politics and finance were controlled by aristocrats.

9

While there are a few realistic misgivings about the overall veracity of the Regal period, there is a great deal to question about its specific details. For instance, seven Kings are supposed to have ruled from the founding of Rome in 753 BC to the creation of the Republic in 509, a period of 244 years, or about thirty-five years per King. That is a rather optimistic view of the stability of the monarchy, the hardiness of the individuals chosen, and that part of human nature that seeks power for itself. In addition, the stories attached to the individual Kings are more like moral dramas played out by symbolic figures than that of actual human lives. All "facts" in the following descriptions should be viewed critically and cautiously, even suspiciously. The seven Kings (one for each hill) began with Romulus (ruled 753715 BC), who we have already met. His major focus was on establishing the laws and regulations which would govern his new city. His other accomplishment was to attract women to Rome (fundamental in order to retain its men) which he accomplished by attacking the neighbouring town of the Sabines and abducting them. This well-known ―Rape of the Sabine Women‖ both made the male residents of Rome more content and provided many future artists with an exploitable theme for paintings of violence towards women, a surefire marketing tool to this day. The Founder was followed by Numa Pompilius (r. 715-673 BC) who brought fortythree years of peace to the young city so he could establish religious orders and build the first temple to a god on the Capitoline Hill. Among his accomplishments was to create the post of Pontifex Maximus, or head priest, the boss of the College of Pontiffs. That title has remained active to this day and is now bestowed upon the Pope, the head priest of the Roman Catholic Church. It is often thought that the title comes from the Latin for "greatest bridge builder" (pons facere maximus) but there are those that believe that it derives from the Etruscan word ―pont‖ (preparer of the road). I lean towards the former derivation because of the crucial importance of bridges over the 10

Tiber (both a sacred river and itself a deity) to Regal Rome and the need to assure that all improvements and repairs were led by a responsible official with sufficient power. Many pediments on Roman churches and ruins contain the name of the Pope responsible for the church or the ruin attached to ―Pont. Max.‖ It was also common on coins, both then and now (left Tiberius, right John Paul II:

The third King, the wonderfully named Tullis Hostilius (673-642), rendered far more to Caesar than to Christ (a breathtaking example of an extraordinarily anachronistic construct) picking fights with his neighbours in Alba Longa which was reduced to ruins and its inhabitants brought into the slowly expanding Roman orbit. He paid for his emphasis on the secular by being slain by Jupiter himself who then added insult to injury by taking the effort to burn down his house with a bolt of lightning. His successor was Ancus Martius (642-617) who had a productive kingship. He had the rules for proper worship laid out on tablets and set out where everyone could read them. But he also concerned himself with defense of the city as well as prayer: he defended the Janiculum hill across the Tiber, built a bridge across the river, and colonised the river's mouth with a new settlement called Ostia (which became the major Roman port until it silted over 1000 years later. The silt also had the advantage of protecting the buildings and Ostia Antica, as it is now called, is an absorbing day trip from Rome). This opened Rome up to the sea and international trading, allowing the city to take full advantage of her unique geographical position.

11

The fifth of seven is the first of the Tarquin kings, Tarquinius Priscus (616-579), who was said to be an Etruscan who had travelled to Rome to become a merchant. He did well. He conquered the tribes of central Italy and even the powerful Etruscans acknowledged him as their king sending him the symbols of power which were to remain engrained in Roman society henceforth. These symbols were: a crown, a scepter, and an ivory chair, an embroidered tunic, a purple toga and twelve bundles of rods called fasces in each of which was an axe. The fasces, carried by twelve men called the lictors, were symbolic of his kingly power to judge and sentence to death, what the Romans called ―imperium.‖ Mussolini, who provided his 12

own imperium, chose the fasces as the symbol and namesake of his neo-Imperial Fascist party. You can see them today on the walls of the Palazzo Venezia, Mussolini's head office. Among his other significant accomplishments was to lay out the original Circus Maximus just below the Palatine Hill, to build Rome's first sewer (the ―cloaca maxima‖ which is still visible from the shore of the Tiber), and to build the first Temple to Jupiter on the Capitoline which wisely prevented him from being struck by lightning. Tarquinius Priscus may have only been a merchant, but his successor (and probable assassin) was the son of a slave, an early and acute example of upward mobility. Sirvius Tullius (579-535) never forgot his origins and became beneficent towards the lower orders of the city. He created a census that was held every five years to count every inhabitant of Rome. He radically changed the military system: until then the army was composed only of Patricians. Servius included all landowners, which he subdivided by the amount of land they owned. The largest landowners for example could afford a horse, armour and weapons and would thus form the cavalry (which became the future order of equites). Poorer classes could only afford smaller amounts of armour for themselves and would therefore be in the infantry as foot soldiers. He set aside an area north-west of the city for military training, naming it the Campus Martius (Field of Mars), and divided the troops into groups of 100 commanded by centurions (centum = 100). That part of Rome still retains that name and among other things will house Steven and Randi in July. For good measure he constructed the first comprehensive wall around Rome, modestly called the Servian wall, parts of which can still be seen today. The end of his reign was rather poignant. His avaricious daughter Tullia, together with her husband Lucius Tarquinius, a son of Tarquinius Priscus, decided they wished power for themselves. In the centre of the original Forum Lucius seized the aged Servius and flung him down the steps of the Senate and sent men to finish him off. Tullia (remember how 13

daughters are named?), having heard of these tragic events, was so overcome by grief at the loss of her father that she immediately went to proclaim her husband as King and then had her chariot driven over her beloved father's body -- just to be sure. Lucius Tarquinius thus earned the title of the seventh and final King of Regal Rome gaining a nickname in the process. He is known to quasi-history as Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud and reigned from 535 to 509. He was a warrior king who continued the task of defeating neighbouring tribes and bringing their manpower and assets to Rome. Given how he obtained his imperium it should come as no surprise that he was a harsh ruler who made many enemies. He and his family were permanently exiled from Rome in 509 BC. The city was now to become a Republic and it decreed that should anyone speak in favour of a return to kingly rule they should be put to death as an enemy of the state. That there were kings in Rome at this time cannot be questioned. That there were just seven cannot be plausibly believed. That their names were so-and-so and their accomplishments were this-and-that will never be fully known. The who-knows-howmany kings of Rome left behind them an inheritance of a legal system, a class structure, and the geographical division of the city into districts. A census every five years permitted a more just taxation. Indispensable engineering and building projects were also undertaken. The final result constituted a solid foundation for the City-State that Rome had become. In the next 250 years Rome would subdue the surrounding peoples such as the Etruscans, the Samnites, and various Greek colonies in Italy, making herself master of the entire Italian peninsula and well-positioned to expand outwards to become the greatest Empire yet known. I have flown to star-stained heights on bent and battered wings in search of mythical Kings. Sure that everything of worth is in the sky and not the earth I never learned to make my way down where the iguanas play. - Dory Previn

And to the Republic for which it Stood The rape (and kidnapping) of the Sabine Women during the reign of the first king, Romulus, strengthened the brand-new monarchy by pleasing its male citizens whose 14

gratitude towards the benefactor was as everlasting as was their lust. It is therefore only fitting that the final straw that ended the regal period was another brutal rape. Lucretia, the wife of the nobleman Collatinus, was raped by Sextus, the son of King Tarquinius Superbus and subsequently committed suicide. Because Sextus had the bad judgment to assault an aristocrat's wife it created a great deal of resentment among the patricians. A family friend, Lucius Junius Brutus, organised a powerful resistance against the King and his clan who were forced to flee Rome. A plot to restore the monarchy failed resulting in, among other things, the execution of Brutus‘s two sons who disagreed with their father‘s actions. Take note, Zachary. The sources for this story, which like many of the regal period‘s details are historically unreliable, are Ovid and Livy. This story has had legs in the literature of the future including an opera by Benjamin Britten and a poem by an otherwiseunknown Elizabethan author, Will Shakespeare. While the story itself is certainly historically and humanly possible more likely the transition from monarchy to Republic was not a single, dramatic event but a slow process stretching into the mid-fifth century BC. The Romans had at the beginning of the Republic a constitution which had laid down the traditions and institutions of government; this constitution, however, was not a formal or even a written document, but rather a series of unwritten traditions and laws. These were based on the institution of a monarchy, so while the Romans did not revive the monarchy, they still invested vast amounts of power in their officials. The Roman enhancement, and an impressive one it was, was a series of checks and balances so that one individual, with one exception noted below, could not solely impose their will nor retain power for extended periods. It was a tri-partite system consisting of the Senate of patricians, the three Assemblies of the people (plebians) called Comitias, and elected Magistrates. The Senate was devised during the regal period as an ad hoc advisory Council for the King. Its name derives from the Roman word for old man, senex, and it was intended to be a council of elders. During the early period of the Republic it gradually evolved into a standing body comprised of 300 patricians (over a minimum age) that served as the chief governing body. The Comitias, on paper, would appear to be the more significant 15

player in Republican politics but when has anyone but the wealthy run a country? Or a club? Or a country club? Its primary functions were: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

to to to to to

discuss legislation before it went to the Comitias for approval; develop a election list for Magistrate offices; suspend normal rules in times requiring martial law; control finances (taxes, appropriations, religion); and manage provincial and foreign affairs. Typical of real senatorial power was the dodge that all treaties and decisions to go to war, over which the Comitias nominally held final approval, had to be approved by the Senate before even being discussed by the People's assemblies.

Of the three Comitias, only two were significant by the middle point of the Republican era. The Comitia Centuriata, voting by groups called centuries, elected major magistrates (see below) from a list of candidates helpfully supplied by the Senate and had the right to declare offensive wars (are there any other kind?). The Comitia Tributa could legislate on any matter except the declaration of an offensive war. It also elected minor magistrates. The major magistrates were the consuls, the praetors, and the censors. The minor magistrates were the aediles, the quaestors, and the tribunes. The elected magistrates of the Roman Republic were held in check by the equal distribution of power through multiple officials of the same rank. For example, either consul could veto any act or decision by the other consul or any decision by a lower official. As another check on the potential abuse of power terms of office were limited to one year (18 months for censors). There were two Consuls (Latin for "those who walk together") who were heads of state. They represented the government in dealing with both individuals and other states; they commanded the Armed Forces in the field; they could issue edicts or proclamations as necessary; and they could summon the Senate or the Comitias and presided over these 16

bodies in session. As a symbol of their imperium, or legal authority and immunity from prosecution while in office, they paraded around Rome with 12 lictors-cum-fasces. Following their consulship (they could stand for re-election) they became members of the Senate and often spent a few years abroad as proconsuls, or administrators of Roman provinces.

There were eight Praetors who, because they were granted only six lictors to demonstrate their imperium, were to the vast majority of illiterate Romans only half as important as consuls. Their main functions were to administer civil law in Rome as administrators of the Courts of Justice and to publish edicts which set forth the forms of civil procedure to be used in the following year. The two Censors (from the Latin word ―Census‖) served 18 months but were elected only every five years to conduct the census, enroll new citizens, review the rolls of the Senate to assure that they met eligibility 17

requirements (money, family, and land), and were responsible for policies governing public morals (as today). They lacked imperium and therefore were unaccompanied by lictors and could be dispensed with for the 3 1/2 years between the ends of terms and elections. Those were the three major magistrates. Among the minor magistrates were the four Aediles (from the old responsibility of caretaking of the aedes, or the Temple of Ceres) who were in charge of municipal activities such as religious festivals, public games, temples, the upkeep of the city, the grain supply, and the regulation of the marketplaces. Two of the aediles, the curule aediles, could be either plebeian or patrician and were entitled to two lictors while the others (the plebeian aediles), like this little piggy, had none. The Struggle of the Orders (see next chapter) resulted in the creation of ten Tribunes (from the Latin ―tribus‖ or tribes) whose major function was to protect the rights of Plebians against the arbitrary power of patrician magistrates. They were responsible for the protection of lives and property of plebians; they were considered sacrosanct meaning their bodies were to be free of physical harm. In addition they had the power of veto over elections, laws, decrees of the senate, and the acts of all other magistrates in order to protect the interest of the people (though this in itself became a powerful and manipulated political tool - surprise!). They convened tribal assemblies and elicited plebiscites which after 287 BC had force of law (essentially meaning that the Tribunes could go directly to the people rather than the Senate and magistracy to propose and adopt policies). They were, alas, imperium-less and therefore lictor-less. Lonely. They were a changing number of Quaestors during the Republic, but around 20 will do for our purposes. These were the financial officers of the state who were its receiving agents, paymasters, and record keepers. Think of them as the bookkeepers of the state, the ancestors of modern bureaucrats. Two of the twenty remained in the city and were in charge of the state treasury located on the Capitoline Hill in the Temple of Juno Moneta (the derivation of the word "money"), the remaining were in charge of the financial administration of the rest of Italy and the provinces. That leaves the exception to all the rules and all the checks and all the balances that were developed in the Roman Republic to prevent the abuse of power: the Dictator. In perilous times, typically of military emergency, public unrest, or political upheaval a dictator could be appointed to have supreme authority. The Dictator's tenure was limited to six months or the duration of crisis, whichever was shorter. During Roman Republican history, dictators rarely served their full term before stepping down. He appointed his own 18

lieutenant, the Master of the Horse (magister equitum), whose tenure matched his. His authority could not be limited by the tribunes, his edicts were not subject to the veto, and to prove his importance he was granted twenty-four lictors. Actually, this distribution of lictors to demonstrate both the existence of imperium and its relative strength was a striking way for ordinary citizens to fully comprehend who was shoving him out of the way on the street and to keep his mouth shut. The Roman Republic lasted from approximately 509 BC with the expulsion of the Tarquinads until Julius Caesar ended it in all but name around 50 BC. During that period Rome grew from a tiny city on the Tiber to a powerful state controlling northern Africa, southern Europe, parts of Asia Minor, and all of Italy. Until the time of the Gracchi Brothers (next chapter) in the latter part of the second century BC the checks and balances functioned well but as the city grew in importance the limitations of the Republican form of government became an impediment to the future growth of the Empire and had to be replaced by what essentially became a monarchy, although the proper obeisance was often paid to democratic forms, most cleverly and effectively by the exalted Augustus. It was a system that worked quite well in its time and was a remarkable achievement.

The Republic (Part II): The Struggle of the Orders and the Three Punic Wars It is now approximately 100 days until we run off to Rome -- not that I'm counting. I lament now about all the trips I made to Europe where I went only to Copenhagen and never gave a reflection to looking elsewhere. While my reasons for travelling to Denmark were sound and hardly constituted a misstep, looking back now, at 63, I wish I had discovered my passion for Rome much earlier. The four days we spent there in 1992, added to the six days in 2007 and to the eleven planned for this coming July, will add up to a mere three weeks over almost twenty years which is a ludicrously inadequate amount of time to begin to experience, let alone comprehend, this most mesmerizing of cities. Remember, I didn't choose to romance Rome. Instead, against my will, I was wined, dined, stripped, and seduced by Rome, and then abandoned to while away my few remaining years in respectable but drab Toronto. The oldest story of all. Love it and leave it. 19

Perhaps that is why our plans are made so far in advance. That gives me the leisure I require to study one volume after another about its history, its architecture, its people, and its culture. Books, Teaching Company lectures, and Internet sites are my persistent companions. As you can tell by the extent of the preparatory history sections which we are all in the midst of, I have accumulated a massive amount of facts and even a few of them into what could loosely be called knowledge. It is a city that requires both conscientious study and mindless spontaneity in order to begin to appreciate its enchantment. I am usually much better at the former than the latter but here again Rome has persuasively led me astray into allowing it to take control when I am in its presence, even metaphorically. By immersing myself in this manner I exponentially expand the duration of our relationship. The only alternative is a large lottery win. Back to the Roman Republic.... It lasted over four hundred years and, despite great gaps in the historical record, contained enough significant activity and fascinating characters for a lengthy dissertation or series of monographs. Rather than make a feeble attempt to trivialise the Republic by overwhelming you with details, I will instead provide you with a few highlights here and there to provide a better, if obviously shallow, understanding of how and why such a successful and relatively democratic system developed into an authoritarian state with so many madmen at the helm. The Struggle of the Orders was a socio-political conflict between the patricians and the plebs that dominated Roman domestic politics from 494 to 287 BC. It was a protracted struggle between the Orders over social, economic, and judicial issues of interest to the plebs and over access to the political system. In order to assess one's status in Rome your family, your clan, your tribe, and your order were critical identifiers. In the early Republic the Roman political system was dominated by the patricians. While plebs were not excluded from some power per se, their inability to rise upward into the patrician order was cut off in the mid-fifth century and no additional plebs could be admitted to its ranks. 20

The closed patriciate wholly shut off access to power to even the most successful and wealthy pleb families. In 494 BC the plebs, their demands for economic and social reform unmet, seceded across the Tiber River into what is now Trastavere. They left Rome and formed their own, parallel state on the Janiculum Hill (―Giancolo‖ in Italian). It modeled its government on Republican models with a council, elected officers, and resolutions called plebescita. Unfortunately, the historical record is wholly unhelpful in explaining how and when this First Secession ended. But we do know it definitely terminated because there was later a Second Secession. Like modern Quebec, it used secession or its threat to accomplish what quietly remaining under the Republic could not. The Second Secession of 450 revolved around the plebs‘ demand for codification of laws, a helpful idea if one is both judged and punished by ad hoc laws. A Committee of 10 was established to draw up a law code but instead attempted to rule as a junta. In response, the plebs seceded again, the Committee of Ten was sent packing, and Rome got its first written code of law, the Twelve Tables of 449. These do not refer to reservations for a large party in a trattoria but rather to etched tablets which were hung publicly in the Forum. While the actual tablets were destroyed by the invading Gauls in 390 BC lengthy segments remain available to us because of quotations in several other sources. The second Plebian state, its goal achieved, was assimilated back into the Roman Republic. Plebeian demands for land, debt relief, and political equality continued in the ensuing decades and the plebs were 21

partially successful in having them met. The Struggle is considered to have been concluded when the Lex Hortensia made pleb-initiated plebescita binding on all citizens. The Struggle of the Orders was a major formative influence that helped shape Republican government in Rome. As a result new magistracies were created: one Consul a year was to be plebeian; patrician aediles were created to match those of the plebs; and a new magistracy, praetors, was open to both Orders. The resolution of the Struggle and the admission of the plebs into the political system created a patricianplebeian ruling class that united Roman citizens into a relatively cooperative partnership and gave Rome the internal peace and stability that allowed it to spread war to and to conquer its surrounding neighbours. One finds the initials ―SPQR‖ on both ancient and modern artifacts all over the city. It is a tangible statement of the outcome of the Struggles: Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Senate and People of Rome. Having conquered its Italian neighbours and rivals (I will be humane enough to spare you the details but you can look them up) it looked next towards its great Mediterranean competitor, Carthage. The greatest naval power of the Mediterranean in the third century BC was this North African city near modern day Tunis. Between 264 and 146 BC Rome fought three wars against Carthage and these have come down to us as the Three Punic Wars. ―Poeni‖ is the Latin word for Phoenicia (founders of Carthage) and is the derivation of "Punic." While the Romans were steadily increasing their control over the Italian peninsula, the Carthaginians were extending their empire over most of North Africa. By the time that Rome controlled all of the Italian peninsula, Carthage already controlled the North African coast from western Libya to the Strait of Gibraltar, and ruled over most of southern Spain — and the islands of Corsica and Sardinia as well. Carthage was a formidable power; it controlled almost all the commercial trade in the Mediterranean, had subjected vast numbers of people all of whom sent soldiers and supplies, and amassed tremendous wealth from gold and silver mines in Spain. These two empires first came into conflict in the middle of the third century BC when Rome's power had reached the southern tip of Italy. The two peoples had been in sporadic contact before, but neither had felt threatened by the other. Between Carthage 22

and Italy lay the huge island of Sicily; Carthage controlled the western half of Sicily, but the southern tip of the Italian peninsula put the Romans within throwing distance of the island. When the Sicilian city of Messana revolted against the Carthaginians, the Romans intervened, and the First Punic War (264-241 BC) erupted. The first war was concentrated entirely on the island of Sicily. Rome besieged many of the Carthaginian cities on Sicily, and when Carthage attempted to raise the siege with its navy, the Romans utterly destroyed it. Like Korea a bit later, the war essentially ended with no particular side winning. In 241 BC, the Carthaginians and Romans signed a treaty in which Carthage had to give up Sicily, which it didn't miss, and to pay an indemnity to cover Roman costs for the war, which it could well afford. But Carthage soon faced rebellion among its mercenary troops and Rome, in 238 BC, took advantage of the confusion by seizing the island of Corsica. The Carthaginians were enraged at this action; even contemporary Roman historians wrote that it was a rash and unethical act. The Carthaginians, in response, began to shore up their presence in Europe, mainly in Spain. The Second Punic War (218-202) is a better story with far more interesting characters, including two major heroes. Growing increasingly anxious, the Romans had imposed a treaty on Carthage not to expand their empire past the Ebro River in Spain. However, when a small city in Spain, Saguntum, approached Rome for its friendship and alliance, the Romans couldn't resist having a friendly ally right in the heart of the Carthaginian Iberian empire. In 221 a 25-year-old, Hannibal (hero number one), assumed command of Carthaginian Spain and, despite direct threats from Rome, successfully attacked and conquered Saguntum. The Romans attempted to solve the problem with self-serving diplomacy and demanded that Carthage dismiss Hannibal and send him to Rome. It was hoped that he would accept an honourable magistrate‘s position with sufficient imperium and one fasces; he would have been known to history as Hannibal‘s Lictor. (Just trying to see if you're still awake.)

23

When Carthage reasonably refused, the second Punic War began in 218 BC. Rome, however, was facing a formidable opponent; in the years following the first Punic War, Carthage had created a powerful empire in Spain with a terrifyingly large army. Hannibal marched that army out of Spain, across Europe and, in September of 218, he crossed the Alps with his army and entered Italy on a war of invasion. Yes, and with elephants. Although his army was weary from the rugged journey, he defeated the Roman armies he encountered in northern Italy. Within two months, he had conquered almost the whole of northern Italy. These spectacular victories brought a horde of fifty thousand Gauls from the north to help him; his victory over Rome would be assured if he could induce Roman allies and subject cities to join Carthage as a liberator. Despite Hannibal's confidence that Roman allies would join him, they remained loyal. Better the devil you know…. So Hannibal steered south. The Roman Senate, desperate, appointed Quintus Fabius Maximus as dictator for the term of this emergency. Fabius, like General McClellan, determined to avoid open warfare at any cost and simply shadowed and harassed the Carthaginian army until they were weakened sufficiently to be directly engaged. That circumstance never came about. Fabius was derided for this policy; the Romans called him "The Delayer" and eventually removed his dictatorial imperium. But when Hannibal marched into Cannae in southern Italy and started decimating the countryside in 216 BC, two inexperienced consuls who had replaced Fabius as generals of the army sent an army of eighty thousand legionnaires against him. This army, vastly outnumbering the Carthaginian army, was completely wiped out by Hannibal's brilliant "pincer" strategy. It was the foremost military defeat Rome had yet suffered. This outcome had proven that Fabius was right all along to have avoided direct confrontations, so the Romans went back to his strategy of watchful waiting towards Hannibal. Hannibal‘s, army continued to meander around the Italian countryside absolutely unopposed. The brilliant Carthaginian, however, was becoming vulnerable in numbers and equipment. He didn't have enough soldiers to lay siege to cities, and he didn't have the men or equipment to storm them by force. All he could do was roam the

24

countryside and lay waste to it, not an unpleasant sort of business for him. In 211, he marched right up the walls of Rome, but he never was able to breach or lay siege to it. Ultimately and successfully the Romans shrewdly decided to fight the war through the back door. They knew that Hannibal was dependent on Spain for supplies and cannon fodder, so they appointed a young, strategically gifted man as proconsul and handed him the imperium over Spain. This move was unconstitutional, for this young man had never served as consul. His name: Publius Cornelius Scipio (237-183 BC). Scipio (hero number two), who would later be awarded the honourary title Scipio Africanus for his victory over Carthage, by 206 had conquered all of Spain, which was converted into two Roman provinces. Hannibal was now left high and dry in Italy. Scipio then crossed into Africa in 204 BC and took the war to the walls of Carthage itself. This forced the Carthaginians to sue for peace with Rome; part of the treaty demanded that Hannibal leave the Italian peninsula. Hannibal was one of history's greatest strategic generals who had never lost a major battle. Now, however, he was forced to retreat homewards; he had, despite winning every battle, lost the war, emulating Pyrrhus a century before. When he returned to Carthage in 202 BC, the Carthaginians took heart and rose up against Rome in one last gambit. At Zama in northern Africa, Hannibal, fighting against Scipio and his Roman army on a real battlefield, met his first -- and last -- defeat. Rome reduced Carthage to a dependent state; Rome now controlled the whole of the western Mediterranean including northern Africa. The Second Punic War turned Rome from a regional power into an international empire: it had gained much of northern Africa, Spain, and the major islands in the western Mediterranean. Because Philip V of Macedon had allied himself with Hannibal and started his own war of conquest, the second Punic War forced Rome to turn east in wars of conquest against first Philip and then other Hellenistic kingdoms. The final result of the Second Punic War, in the end, was the domination of the known world by Rome.

25

We don't need to say much about the Third Punic War (149-146 BC) because it really wasn't much of a war at all. Rome wanted something; Carthage was in its way, so they picked a fight on a flimsy pretence, continually arguing the undeniable presence of an immense supply of weapons of mass destruction. Rome had already brutally subjugated the Iberian people who had been so vital to Roman success in the Second Punic War. However, they remained seriously annoyed at the Carthaginians (and Hannibal) who had previously threatened and humiliated them. The great statesman of Rome, George W. Cato, is reported by the historians as ending all his speeches, no matter what their

subject, with the statement, "I also think that Carthage should be destroyed." Carthage had, through the first half of the second century BC, recovered much of its prosperity through its commercial activities, although it had not retained its military power. The Romans, deeply suspicious of any sort of a reviving Carthage, demanded that the Carthaginians abandon their city and move inland into North Africa. It was an offer that the Carthaginians, dependent on sea trade, could refuse. The Roman Senate declared war, and Rome attacked the city itself with shock and awe. After a siege, the Romans stormed the town and the army went from house to house slaughtering the inhabitants. Carthaginians who weren't massacred were sold into slavery. Its leaders were found unshaven in holes and later hanged after kangaroo trials. The harbor and the city were demolished, and all the surrounding countryside was sown with salt in order to render it uninhabitable. Rome was now the sole military power in the western Mediterranean. 26

In our third, and final, installment of our hit and miss story of the Roman Republic, we will look at its death throes in what has come to be called The Roman Revolution which began with the Brothers Gracchi‘s introduction of violence into domestic Roman politics in 133 BC and ended a century later when Julius Caesar‘s adopted son Octavian (Augustus) created, in essence, a permanent and hereditary monarchy.

The Roman Revolution As of today there are III months or XII weeks or LXXXIV days until we leave for Rome. I would probably also be keeping track of seconds but I never figured out how to multiply Roman numerals. They did it, but it was very complicated -- if any you are interested, follow this link: http://www.phy6.org/outreach/edu/roman.htm . I‘m not. Those who have paid attention to my musings in the past will be aware that this is about the time my travel paranoia begins to profoundly deepen. I begin to invent horrible thunderstorms that will break on the night we leave, a reawakening of my long-dormant kidney stones, an ankle sprain, anything at all that is even marginally possible that could interfere with the accomplishment of my travel goals. As if to assure the return of this anxiety we now have a volcano in Iceland that is interfering with air travel to Europe and, as of now, nobody knows how long the situation will persevere. I would think that three months from now should be safe and I would further think that southern Europe should be safe. But that's only if I were thinking clearly instead of in the grip of a pre-travel mental illness. When Randi and I were returning from Europe in 1979 our flight coincided with the fall to earth of the enormous Skylab which is probably where I first became drug-resistant to travel and safety rationality. Back to the past, where they did things differently. The Roman Revolution specifically begins with the tribunates of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC and his brother Gaius ten years later. A respected member of a noble house, Tiberius Gracchus started out to patch up a clear-cut problem but employed means that ultimately pointed to a new route to power for the ambitious and violent. The legacy of the Gracchi brothers, in short, was to introduce carnage into 27

domestic Roman politics. The ultimate effect of these events was the overthrow of the Republic and its replacement with the absolute rule of emperors. It began with Tiberius‘s proposal of a land reform to create more small farmers who would then be eligible for military service. This was to be accomplished by limiting the amount of public land any one citizen could own. Anything exceeding the limit would be returned to the state to be distributed among the landless poor. The backbone of the Roman army was the citizen-soldier of some means, for the soldier had to provide his own weapons and armor. In practical terms this meant that the Roman army consisted of farmers, while the urban poor avoided military service. Military service was a heavy burden for a Roman man, for soldiers had to serve in 20 campaigns before they could retire. Because of the many wars between 250 and 150, a young farmer might find himself in military service and not return until he was aged. In the meantime, his farm fell into debt. The returned veteran might have no head for farming, nor any inclination to struggle. Warfare may have an effect upon the lifespan but it did have the benefits of porridge, rape, and pillage. Increasingly, these former legionnaires drifted to Rome where they joined the angry legions of the unemployed. Tiberius‘s solution was to give away huge tracts of land to Roman veterans. The veterans would settle the land and begin to farm it in the traditional Roman manner. They would have families and raise a new generation of Romans. Thus, with a single reform, Tiberius proposed to redress both the quality of the army and the neglect of the many veterans. Whether he was motivated by a desire for genuine reform or was just another politician seeking benefits for himself and his supporters, his measures to accomplish this land reform were catastrophic. In outline form, here is what happened: 1. Tiberius illegally bypassed the Senate and proposed the law directly to the people via the Tribal Council of the Plebs. Democracy can be so inconvenient at times. 2. The Senate responded by using the Republic's checks and balances to arrange for another Tribune to veto the bill. Sneaky, but legal. 3. Tiberius responded by having that other Tribune deposed by plebiscite, thereby undermining one of the central concepts of the Roman Republic: collegiality. 4. The law was passed by the Tribal Council but the Senate refused to fund its implementation. They were at an impasse. 5. Tiberius, in his turn, undermined the Senate's traditional control of state finances by proposing a law diverting taxes from the new province of Asia to fund the land reform. Your move. 6. Comfortable now with undermining profound Republican virtues, Tiberius then declared his intention to stand for the succeeding tribunate, which went against the concept of limited tenure of office. Power corrupts. 7. A simple and effective conclusion: the Senate finally resolved the problem by disrupting Tiberius‘s political rally by beating him and 300 of his followers to death. His corpse, like that of a common criminal, was thrown into the Tiber.

28

Tiberius' Land Act was law, but as he had feared, it was essentially ignored. The senators congratulated themselves on having defended the Republic against a fearful peril and set about business as usual. While bypassing established procedures, going around the Senate, and seeking continuous power were problematic the most profound impact of Tiberius‘s and the Senate‘s political differences was the use of violence to suppress Tiberius which then entered the world of Rome in domestic politics for the first time, but hardly the last. Then came his brother, Gaius, ten years later who was more of a revolutionary and far more of a demagogue than Tiberius. As Tribune he intended to enforce the Land Act and to gain support among the masses by providing them with cheap grain and employing them on public works projects. This was appalling enough for the senators, but he really went too far when he proposed Roman citizenship for Rome's Italian allies. As before, the Senate found another Tribune, Livius Drusus, more to their liking and he outbid Gaius for the affection of the masses. "Friends, Romans, countrymen: Gaius offers you cheap grain. I offer you free grain." Drusus won the debate. Violence having been established as the way to do political business, Gaius began to walk around with armed bodyguards who supported his politics with effective muscle. Similar to the situation of Germany during the Weimar Republic every political meeting degenerated into a dangerous brawl. Unlike the Weimar government, the Senate issued a decree of martial law. This 29

suspended due process and yielded power to the consuls, allowing them to bring the army into the city, another tragic precedent. It said, in effect, that the Senate would support any actions taken by the consuls for the duration of the decree. Gaius and his gang of cutthroats realised their number was up and took the drastic measure of occupying and fortifying the Aventine Hill, just south of the Palatine and Forum. It had become a civil war, the first since the Republic was founded almost 400 years before. The army, however, besieged them and Gaius and his unlucky followers were overwhelmed and massacred in 122. As a gentleman of honour, Gaius (on the far right above) did the right thing. The Gracchi are tragic figures: reformers who made literally fatal mistakes in political judgment. Together they mark the introduction of violence into Roman politics and the circumvention of the constitution, trends that will become more and more extreme in the next century. The crisis they manipulated also revealed the weakness of the Republic and of the constitution. The Senate could be circumvented; not without price, but it appeared that there were those willing to pay the price. What was circumvented once would later be trampled repeatedly. We move along now to another pair of figures on the road to killing off the Republic. In contrast to the Gracchus brothers, Gaius Marius was a self-made man with no aristocratic background. He came from humble origins and made a spectacular career for himself through the Roman army. Marius had successfully completed military campaigns in North Africa and ran for, and was elected, consul for 108 BC. No sooner had Marius wrapped up matters in Africa than disaster struck in Gaul. At Arausio, in southern France, an entire consular army was wiped out by the Cimbri and Teutones, Germanic tribes from northern Germany. After the loss at Arausio in 105, there was suddenly no army between Rome and the barbarians, conjuring up memories of the invasion and sack of Rome by the Gauls in 391. The plea went out immediately to Marius to save Rome. He again raised an army, being elected consul again (he was in fact elected consul five times in a row, which was unprecedented in Roman history), and again Marius came to the rescue. At Aquae Sextiae in 102, and at Vercellae the next year, Marius won successive 30

victories that were so decisive that the Gauls not only ceased to be a threat to Rome, they ceased to be a threat to anyone. The French have certainly had a long and proud history of military defeats. Throughout his victories, Marius‘s right-hand man was a military genius, Cornelius Sulla. After a tense history of working together severe stress occurred when the Senate chose Sulla to command an army against Mithradates, an eastern potentate who was causing some trouble for Rome. This led to an extended conflict between the two Roman generals as to who would lead the army. They spent a great deal of time fighting each other while Mithridates went on his merry way. First the Senate changed their mind and gave the commission to Marius whereupon Sulla marched on Rome with his army (the most dangerous precedent yet of intruding violence into the political process) and, with his army, convinced the Senate to outlaw Marius. Feeling himself comfortably in charge Sulla then went east to deal with Mithridates whereupon Marius, a quick study, marched on Rome with his army to undertake bloody reprisals on those who backed Sulla. This might have gone on for some time but fortunately Marius died in 87 BC. Sulla made peace with Mithradates in 85, freeing him to pursue his political ambitions. It also freed the Senate to move against him. The Senate outlawed him in 83, a step that inevitably meant civil war. If he submitted to the Senate, his enemies would at the least exile him if not actually have him executed. This, for Cornelius Sulla, was not an option. It was time to fight or die. He returned, with his army, to Italy. While Rome had not been invaded for 300 years by foreigners, it had become increasingly common for them to be invaded by their own leaders. In 82 BC Sulla met the Senatorial army at the gates of Rome and won a complete victory after which he massacred all of Marius‘s one-time supporters. He was at the gates of Rome with an army and there was no one left to oppose him. Sulla, with armed soldiers by his side, called the Senate into session. They came. There, he had his cronies declare that the Republic was threatened (as indeed it was), and the Senate proceeded to "elect" Sulla dictator. It was an offer they could not refuse, especially because there was no opposition candidate. After the six-month period, Sulla called the Senate back into session, his cronies again declared a national emergency, and Sulla was duly elected dictator again. The next time, he was elected dictator for life, which had not been done before but would be done again.

31

Sulla got to like being in power and decided that one way to retain power would be to kill his enemies and their families and appropriate their property. In 82 BC his think tank came up with the concept of proscription based on Marius's precedent. A list was drawn up, an enemies list, and publicly posted so that everyone would know who the current prey was. Financial rewards were available to anyone who brought in the heads (attached or otherwise) of anybody on the list. The technique was horrifyingly efficient. Sulla not only published his proscription lists, he changed them from time to time, so that a man might find himself in danger and then suddenly out of danger. He went on editing his lists for over a year, frightening people to no end. Even those who were not proscribed tread lightly lest they find their name on Sulla's lists the next day. The proscription lists served another function. After killing thousands in this way, and seizing their estates, Sulla was able to confiscate land and wealth and offices for about 120,000 of his soldiers. This was not idle generosity on his part: his soldiers were mostly landless men and he had to pay them or face unrest and rebellion. They were the force that kept him on the throne. His political base. Despite this extraordinary appropriation of power, Sulla showed some regard for Republican forms, keeping carefully within the law with the exception of his own role. He instituted sweeping reforms -- of the Senate, finances, the army, and the provinces - all carried through in proper form, though of course none were left to defy him. Once he had implemented all the reforms he thought necessary, the dictator resigned in 79 and retired to his estates. He returned control of Rome to the Senate and refused to be drawn back into politics. He died the following year. For all his radicalism, Sulla still sought to preserve the Republic, not to destroy it. He saw the need for radical change and was convinced that the Senate would never affect it, so he used whatever means necessary to administer the medicine he felt Rome needed. Nevertheless, in seeking to preserve the Republic, Sulla did indeed help to destroy it. His use of the army for political ends set a precedent that would soon be revisited by Julius Caesar. Sulla had revealed that the Senate was ultimately powerless in the face of the army, and from that moment the Republic was truly doomed. In the next segment of this, my Magnum Opus, we will look at how Gaius Julius Caesar put the Republic out of its misery, although it ultimately caused some difficulties for him.

The Other, Lesser, Ides of March If you had attended a concert of the three tenors where each of them took the part of one member of the First Triumvirate Luciano Pavarotti would sing the part of Gaius Julius Caesar, Placido Domingo would sing the part of Pompeius Magnus, and Crassus would be sung by the other guy. 32

We begin with the Arcadian death of Sulla in 78 BC. It is said that power abhors a vacuum and the first into the gap was Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, a consul, who attempted to repeal Sulla's reforms by using his violent methods. Like far too many before him Lepidus raised an army of rebellious Italians and marched on Rome (77) where he was defeated by senatorial forces at the Milvian Bridge, dying shortly afterwards. As before, armed insurrection was the chosen method for the attainment of power and the passage of legislation. Lepidus‘s downfall provided the background for the rapid rise to prominence of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (known as Pompey the Great, 106-48 BC), a low-born military officer who had, under Sulla, successfully fought

against the forces of Marius in Africa. Once again ignoring the statutes that had regulated the Republic so successfully for centuries, the 33

Senate illegally granted Pompey both imperium and military command against Lepidus despite the fact that he was both underage and had never served as a magistrate. Following the Battle of the Milvian Bridge Pompey, with his army reinforcing his request, asked for another command against another revolter, Quintus Sertorius, a follower of Marius who had successfully organised Spain into a quasi-independent colony of Rome. Given the alternative, the Senate acquiesced and Pompey was off to Spain where he defeated Sertorius in a bitter, difficult six-year campaign. After the swords were sheathed, Pompey proved himself to be an efficient and effective administrator who returned Spain as a peaceful and profitable colony for Rome. As was typical of Roman leadership during the dying years of the Republic absence did not make the heart grow fonder. Taking advantage of Pompey's distance from Rome, the extraordinarily wealthy and well-connected Marcus Licinius Crassus (115-53 BC), whose fortune had wildly increased during Sulla's proscription activities (cheaply buying up land that had come on the market rather suddenly), deployed his wealth in vast bribing operations to secure his election to magistracies. The slave revolt of 73 BC led by the Thracian Spartacus gave Crassus the opportunity for military glory which could only help his political ambitions. After considerable initial success Spartacus was finally defeated by Crassus in 71 and was planted, along with 6000 others, on a cross in the Via Appia. Unfortunately Pompey saw danger on the horizon and raced home from Spain so that he could share in the laurels by assisting in a few minor operations. Crassus was incensed at the manner by which Pompey stole some of his thunder and any opportunity for peaceful coexistence in the future was considerably diminished. In this matter, however, Crassus got the last laugh. In Kubrick‘s 1960 film ―Spartacus‖ which seems to run as long as the slave revolt itself Crassus is played brilliantly, if somewhat gaily, by Sir Laurence Olivier while Pompey is entirely absent from the cast. Crassus would have given it two thumbs up. Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls for 70 BC and followed the dangerous modern precedent of each bivouacking an army loyal to them near Rome. They staged a public reconciliation but both had fingers crossed behind their backs. Does anyone remember that Sulla let Mithridates off the hook in 83 BC? The King of Pontus showed his gratitude by starting a 34

new war in Asia eight years later, in league with the pirates of Cilicia, which threatened Rome's grain supply. To counter the threat the Senate granted Pompey (in 67) the extraordinarily powerful imperium infintum which was not limited to a particular province. It was granted not for six months but for three years. Pompey again showed his competence by defeating the pirates in three months and cleverly settling them as traders and farmers in Cilicia. Normally (pre-Marius) he would have surrendered his imperium at that point but instead had it transferred to Asia so that he could finally end Mithridates‘s potential for mischief. Pompey devoted the next four years to defeating Mithridates and reorganising the entire geopolitical situation in the Eastern Empire. As before, what Pompey did he did well, which included ensuring himself credit for all that he did well and for some things he did not do at all. While he was covering himself in glory in the east, Crassus did his best to undermine his position in Rome. Hearing of this, Pompey suddenly proclaimed that his work was done in the east and returned to Rome in 62 BC. It was widely anticipated that Pompey would emulate his former boss Sulla by returning Rome to despotic rule and horrifying proscriptions. However, when he returned to Rome Pompey disbanded his army and entered the city as a private citizen. In all, he was a pretty decent guy. Among Crassus‘s ideas for reducing Pompey's influence was to introduce to our story the gigantic temperament of Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 BC). Caesar was born (by Caesarean section according to an unlikely legend) of Aurelia and Gaius Julius Caesar, a praetor. His family had noble, patrician roots, although they were neither rich nor influential in this period. His aunt Julia was, however, the wife of the consul Gaius Marius. Caesar was hardly plucked from the void by Crassus. He had been following the traditional route to power by successful military actions and by election to various posts of increasing responsibility and prestige. And by marrying well-connected and wealthy wives such as the granddaughter of Sulla, Pompeia. It was a careful and well thought out progress to power. In 72 he was elected military Tribune; in 68 quaestor; in 67 he was named to the Senate; in 65 he was elected curule aedile and spent lavishly on games to promote his beneficence (with Crassus‘s bottomless sacks of money); in 63 he achieved the post of Pontifex Maximus and the next year Praetor. He divorced 35

Pompeia and married Calpurnia, from a wealthy family. In 61 he was sent to Spain as proprietor. Meanwhile, Pompey had been frustrated by opposition in the Senate, led by a group of diehard conservatives under the fanatic Republican Marcius Portius Cato (who always dramatically wore a black toga to symbolise the death of the Republic), to his two basic demands: land for his veterans and ratification of the eastern settlements. Pompey also faced the opposition of not just Crassus but also of his protégé Caesar. Caesar cynically approached Pompey and proposed an alliance against the Senate and the two united, along with Crassus, in what has been called the First Triumvirate. It was arranged that Caesar be elected consul for 59 BC. The historian Marcus Terentius Varro (who had written a manual showing how the consulship operated) describe this arrangement as "the beast with three heads." The triumvirs wasted little time in violently intimidating the Senate to pass legislation favourable to them. For instance Cato was arrested and the Senate prorogued when necessary. Caesar assigned himself a five-year command in Gaul which included control of five legions. Pompey got his landfor-veterans bill passed and his Asian settlements ratified. Crassus, consistent at least, saw that Crassus profited immensely from Asian taxes. All of these measures were passed by means of violence and intimidation. In essence, the three triumvirs had free reign to behave as they saw fit. Another nail in the Republic‘s coffin was deeply pounded. Following his consulship in 59 Caesar felt comfortable enough with the situation in Rome to accept his own offer of military command in Gaul and embarked on what became a 10 year personal war of conquest for his own glory. He proved a brilliant general and achieved a remarkable series of military conquests that saw him carry the Roman eagles over the Rhine into Germany, across France, and into Britain. By the end of the wars in 49 Caesar had added what is now modern France and significant part in Switzerland, Holland, and Germany to the Roman Empire. Although that that was not his purpose, Caesar's conquests also carried urbanised Mediterranean culture into northern Europe on a permanent basis and had a profound effect on subsequent European history. And significant wealth accumulated to Caesar.

36

These campaigns in Gaul are described in meticulous detail within his "Commentaries," perhaps the most literate and lucid description of ancient warfare. It was much admired by his contemporaries and not coincidentally served as powerful political propaganda for its author, communicating his military glory to all who could read its magnificently written Latin. Despite the three large egos involved, the constant tensions among the triumvirs, and Caesar's absence from Rome the Triumvirate held until the death of Crassus in Syria in 53 while he was attempting to match the military glory of his partners against the Parthians. He should have stuck to gathering capital at which he was unparalleled. They had occasional conferences to catch up any differences and Caesar married his daughter Julia to Pompey to bind their agreement. Despite the political genesis of the marriage it was clear that Pompey dearly loved Julia and when she died in childbirth (in 54) it broke both his heart and eventually the political agreement. There were other causes for the ultimate failure of the First Triumvirate. The Senate, for its own purposes, exploited the tensions in an attempt to drive a wedge into the alliance. The Conservative faction, led by Cato and Marcus Tullius Cicero (a brilliant orator and successful politician who was primarily responsible as consul in 63 for putting down the Catiline Revolt) who continually attempted to recall Caesar from Gaul and, when that failed, to prosecute him for overstaying his imperium. Catch-XXII was that he could not be legally prosecuted while in Gaul and would not voluntarily return to be prosecuted. After the deaths of Julia and Crassus, Caesar and Pompey were metaphorically left on the dusty street, Spanish swords in hand, to duel for power. Caesar was attaining glory and wealth in Gaul while Pompey had to deal with street violence in Rome which included the torching and destruction of the Senate in the Forum. In another illegal response the Senate appointed Pompey sole consul to restore order and once again he proved more than capable to the task. The end moved in rapidly when Pompey allowed himself to join the Senate, as a protector of tradition against the threat of Caesarian domination, in calling for Caesar's return from Gaul. While Caesar could not be prosecuted or punished while in Gaul he was well aware that if he returned to Rome as a private citizen he faced at the minimum political extinction and, more than likely, assassination. Failing to negotiate an end to the deadlock he moved his legions closer to Italy while Pompey mobilised his legions to save the Republic. 37

On 10 January, 49 BC, Caesar led his troops across the Rubicon, a small and unimpressive creek in northern Italy which has grown over the years into a raging, roaring metaphor for a point of no return. It marked the border between his imperium and Rome. As soon as he crossed accompanied by his troops he became an outlaw. He had declared war on Rome. The most significant of all of Rome's civil wars had begun. The actual main-battle-part-of-the-war was over rather quickly, rather anticlimactically. Pompey and the Conservative faction left town by sunset leaving the city open to Caesar's triumphant return. Caesar was known for his ―celeritas‖ or speed of movement and drove Pompey and his allies ever eastward until they were finally engaged and crushed by Caesar's outnumbered but more battle-hardened troops at Pharsalus (in Thessaly, Greece). Pompey managed to flee by boat to Egypt with his family where he was unceremoniously murdered by a local claimant to the Ptolemaic throne who gifted Caesar with Pompey's head. Caesar was normally merciful to defeated opponents and was not pleased with the gift. Cato committed suicide two years later rather than accept Caesar's usual magnanimous pardon which would have been humiliating. There remained several years of mopping up operations in Asia, Africa, and Spain until Caesar could retire undefeated and unopposed by massed armies. Following his victory at Munda in Spain in 45, Caesar was the unchallenged master of the Roman world. He also found some time to spend in Egypt installing Cleopatra on the Ptolemaic throne and initiating personal negotiations with the Queen resulting in the birth of his only son, called Caesarion. Caesar proved far less able as a politician consolidating his power than he was as a military leader attaining it. He shrewdly spared his captured opponents (including Brutus and Cassius which later came back to severely haunt him) which placed them forever in his debt. He even offered them positions of responsibility in his new regime (Cassius was named praetor in 44 but did not serve out his term for some reason). Where Caesar failed, and provided an illustrious example for his nephew Octavian, was in his lack of tact and subtlety in paying even a minimal amount of attention to the 38

forms of the Republic while he was amassing dictatorial power. For instance, he arranged for his "election" to the consulship every year but also chose to call himself dictator which incited resentment among remaining Republicans. It was not coincidental that he was assassinated the month after he declared himself "Dictator for Life." Although it did prove true enough. He proclaimed that Sulla was foolish for giving up his dictatorship, a clear signal that he intended to rule indefinitely as dictator. He publicly declared that the "Republic" was a mere word without form or substance. He arranged for the construction of an elaborate throne upon which he would sit in the Senate, like a king. He made no attempt to regularise his position by legislation. In sum, he threw it in their faces. In February of 44 BC a group of perhaps 80 nobles conspired together to eliminate Caesar as a political force. They knew to accomplish this they would have to assassinate him. On March 15, at a Senate meeting in Pompey's Theatre (an ironic location caused by the burning down of the Senate some years earlier) Caesar was surrounded by a group of conspirators and stabbed 23 times at the foot of Pompey‘s statue (more heavy irony). Declaring the tyrant justly killed the conspirators rushed from the scene, leaving Caesar's body behind, believing that they had restored the Republic. Their biggest mistake was in killing only Caesar. It was a limited focus that would prove fatal to all the conspirators, not save only he. Events would prove them tragically mistaken. The greater Ides of March? March 15, 1981. Zachary was born. Poor Randi seemed to be in some sort of discomfort while awaiting his arrival. Helpful as always, I was encouraging the fetus to hold off until after midnight so he could be born on the Ides which I took to be a positive augury. The little guy was born at 12:05 AM. I don't recall Randi being amused.

39

The Third Triumverate: Octavius, Octavian, and Augustus Around 1913 the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and the American government thought through a plan to give the corporation a virtual monopoly on telephone service throughout the country. The extant scattered system of local companies made it difficult to call long-distance or to move equipment. This was not particularly popular decision by the government and there was quite a bit of criticism on both Wall Street and the Congress. There was real concern that the monopoly could be rescinded. AT&T's prescient chairman, Theodore Vail, believed that the best way to maintain its monopoly would be to satisfy its customers. He told his Board and employees that the company needed to focus on "service" in order to supply the world‘s most reliable phone service and equipment so that there would be no complaints about the monopoly. This proved to be a brilliant business decision that both gave Americans excellent telephone service and gave AT&T bottomless access to customers and profits. For many decades everybody was contented. The relevance of this opening paragraph will be seen by the end of this chapter. You must read on or forever be mystified.

40

Following the assassination of Caesar the "Liberators" had formulated no plan for what to do next. This gave an opportunity to Caesar's faction to organise itself and provide strong opposition. It was as if the Liberators believed that the Republic would spring reborn all by itself from the ashes of Caesar's tyranny. They had made no plans to dispose of or rein in Caesar's supporters which were led by Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius) who, in retrospect, should probably have been assassinated simultaneously if the Republic had any possibility of reestablishment and the assassins any possibility of a peaceful retirement. These same Liberators made no moves to secure broader military or popular support. What they actually did was to withdraw to the top of the Capitol Hill in fear of reprisal. Marcus Antonius was born in 83 BC. His family was of great accomplishment and greater turmoil. His paternal grandfather was a brilliant orator who had a difference of opinion with Gaius Marius and was deemed as the loser when he was executed and decapitated. His maternal grandfather was similarly dealt with by Marius. His father died in 71 while in command of troops against the Mediterranean pirates. His mother remarried a wealthy member of the Cornelian clan who became fatally involved on the losing side of the Catiline conspiracy. Left adrift, Antony and his buddies roamed the streets causing mischief and accumulating debts. He fled to Greece to escape his creditors but where he demonstrated his abilities as a cavalry commander. After military service in Syria he came to the attention of Julius Caesar and joined his staff in his pursuit of fame and fortune in the Gallic wars. In many ways he was Caesar's best friend and was never accused of disloyalty to him. Caesar introduced Antony into politics by appointing Antony first Quaestor, then Auger, then Tribune. Antony proved as ineffective as an administrator as he was brilliant as a military leader. There were periods of conflict leading to estrangement 41

between the two friends but their military bond was stronger than their political differences. When he got wind of the assassination plot he hastened to warn Caesar but was too late. He initially feared a similar fate and briefly left Rome dressed as a slave but when it became clear that the Liberators hadn't a clue about following up their advantage he quickly returned and took charge of the situation. His plan was both subtle and dazzling. The Liberators had left Caesar's body on the floor at Pompey‘s Theatre which created a brilliant opportunity for stagecraft. Antony was the logical candidate to deliver the eulogy for Caesar at the Forum as the Liberators had no plan of their own. Shakespeare has since provided a nice translation from the original Latin in his tragedy of Julius Caesar (beginning with "Friends, Romans, countrymen. Lend me your ears.") But it was not so much the language of the eulogy that proved decisive, it was Antony‘s holding up of the bloodstained toga (a potential holy relic if there ever was one) and pointing to each of the 23 cuts, attaching each to a different conspirator. The dictator's mutilated body was also a useful exhibit. He also took this opportunity to appeal to the crowd‘s baser instincts reading the section of Caesar's will in which he left a good deal of money to each citizen. Antony‘s strategy worked and worked well. The crowd insisted upon breaking precedent by cremating Caesar right there in the Forum (normally, cremations were held outside the city walls) after which they ran rioting through the streets demanding the death of his assassins. The Liberators finally made an helpful decision and fled the city. The Senate, which until then had vacillated between the Liberators and Antony, made the decision to act against the conspirators. Those who disagreed ran off to join them. Antony now felt ready to deal militarily with the Liberators and politically with the Senate and the people of Rome in order to consolidate power within his own person. However, Caesar's will contain an unpleasant surprise for him and brought into play a man who became Antony's greatest rival and eventually Rome's and perhaps history‘s greatest leader.

42

Gaius Octavius was born in 63 BC. His father (who died in 59) was an equestrian and governor of Macedonia but, more significantly, his mother Atia was the daughter of Julia, Caesar's sister. When Atia remarried Phillipus, who later became consul, Octavius was sent to live with and be raised by Julia as his stepfather was entirely disinterested in him. There is no record of contact between Caesar and Octavius until the mid-40s (Caesar was in Gaul) but it is clear that the dictator was aware of and appreciative of the innate qualities of his nephew. Yet, to all in Rome, when Caesar was assassinated, Octavius was a non-player and political nobody. When Caesar‘s will was read everyone, including Antony and Octavius, was shocked, shocked that Caesar had not only posthumously adopted his nephew but also named him as his political successor and primary beneficiary. By virtue of the adoption he changed his name to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian or Caesar) and ignored his family‘s advice that he lay low until things settled down. Instead he gathered about him troops loyal to Caesar who followed him to Rome in support of his political claim. Unsurprisingly, Antony disputed the political claim and essentially ignored his rival. Rome was thrown once again into chaos while the double-sided power struggle was played out above their heads. There was the struggle between the Liberators and Caesarians and, within the Caesarian camp, the struggle between Antony and Octavian. The Senate tried as much as possible to play both sides against the other. The Senate, led by Cicero, saw Antony as the major threat to the reinstitution of the Republic and, like Antony and many others, underestimated Octavian believing they could use him and then discard him. They first declared Antony a public enemy while honouring the Liberators and snubbing Octavian. In late Republic fashion Octavian then marched his troops into Rome staging consular elections in which, also unsurprisingly, he was elected consul -- at age 20. As consul, Octavian then revoked the senatorial amnesty granted to the Liberators and outlawed them. By 43 BC Octavian had full military autocracy but unlike both Caesar and Antony he realised that his ascendancy was potentially temporary and turned his mind to making his position more secure. His first step towards strengthening his position was to pretend he was mending his bridges with Antony and formed the Second Triumvirate. Pavarotti will sing the part of Octavian, Domingo the part 43

of Antony, and the other guy the part of Lepidus. Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was a lieutenant in Antony's Army and happily joined the pact resulting from a meeting between Antony and Octavian in northern Italy. A Tribune passed a law naming them "Board of Three with Consular Power for the Organisation of the State" with a term limit of five years. In effect, the three were a military junta with dictatorial powers. The Second Triumvirate dominated Roman politics for the next decade but it should go without saying that there were many and frequent strains among the triumvirs. They showed their political and economic savvy immediately by raising money through the traditional and lucrative manner of proscriptions. They were short of money to pay their troops and proscribed thousands who perished and had their property confiscated. Octavian took a back seat to nobody in identifying potential proscribed. It was also a good time to settle old scores and Cicero, who had delivered powerful speeches against Antony (later published as Cicero's Phillipics), found that the sword was indeed mightier than the word. He was decapitated and his head and hands nailed, somewhat poetically, to the speaker‘s platform (the Rostra) in the Forum. They also arranged for the deification of Julius Caesar and the Temple to him constructed in the Forum. This backfired for Antony because Octavian, as Caesar's heir, could now claim divine descent and immediately added ―divi filius‖ (son of a god) to his name. Throughout his life Octavian had to constantly rearrange the initials on his bath towels. The triumvirs then moved against the Liberators and crushed them at Philippi in Greece in 42. Both Cassius and Brutus, the leaders of all the conspirators, committed suicide. Octavian was unique among Roman political leaders in that he had minimal military experience and left Philippi to Antony and Lepidus to prosecute. In essence the triumvirs then split up the Roman Empire into three spheres of influence. Lepidus, the other guy, was given a minor territory in Africa which sidelined him as a major player. Antony was assigned the territories of the East and Octavian remained in Italy. Ignoring Lepidus, Antony and Octavian circled around each other seeking weakness and threatening battle. When civil war seemed imminent the two met and temporarily resolved their differences. To seal the deal Antony was married to Octavian's sister, Octavia (a kind and faithful woman). When the allotted period of the Second Triumvirate was up it was renewed but with Lepidus increasingly squeezed out. Eventually Lepidus made his move and tried to seize Italy and Sicily but he was easily defeated and exiled to a seaside town near Rome. He had strutted his petty pace upon the stage long enough. Antony removed his base to Alexandria, Egypt where he happily inherited Caesar's dalliance with the Ptolemaic Queen, Cleopatra.

44

Julius Caesar had gained no popularity in Rome by his relationship with Cleopatra and he was greatly resented when he moved her to a villa across the Tiber from Rome. Antony learned nothing from this example and lived openly with Cleopatra as a couple in Alexandria despite his marriage to Octavia, who had remained in Rome. Octavian, who did learn from the past, realised that Antony's behaviour in Egypt was playing directly into his hands. The young man was determined to change his political image to seek bases for its power in other places than the military. At 21 he was clever enough to think in longer terms about how the Roman state could be reorganised and become stable once again. He understood that if he could return political calmness to Rome he could retain power both effectively and legally. He began to position himself as the defender of traditional political values and did so by contrasting himself with Antony, a Roman in the thrall of a foreign despot. Antony, never accused of being a clever politician, contributed to his own downfall through an event known as "The Donations of Alexandria" in 34 BC. After defeating the Parthians Antony staged a pageant in Alexandria in which he and Cleopatra appeared enthroned with their own three children and 45

Caesar's child Caesarion who was presented as "King of Kings" while Cleopatra was hailed as "Queen of Kings." They planned to divide up the Eastern Roman Empire among themselves. In a clear provocation to Octavian, Caesarion was acclaimed the true son of Caesar which was obviously a direct challenge to the basis of Octavian's political legitimacy. It Antony had any support remaining in Rome, it had now dissipated. Civil war was now inevitable. When the Second Triumvirate (which now numbered only two) lapsed in 33 and was not renewed Octavian and Antony responded differently according to their character. Antony simply behaved as if it had not occurred and continued to refer to himself as a triumvir with full powers. Consistent with his new tactic of respecting Roman ways, Octavian abandoned the title and pretended to be what he legally was, a private citizen. That was for public consumption. In private he manipulated tribunes and outmanoeuvred consuls to retain real power. In 32 BC Octavian revealed the contents of Antony's will in which he declared Caesarion the legal heir of Caesar and in which he declared his desire to be buried by Cleopatra‘s side. Octavian promoted rumours to the effect that Antony was planning to install Cleopatra as Queen of the Romans and moving the seat of Roman government to Alexandria. Public opinion in Rome and in the western provinces was entirely with Octavian. All citizens took an oath of allegiance to Octavian. Antony had no legal standing whatsoever in Roman eyes. The two leaders moved against each other in the summer of 31 BC but the war was short, decisive, and anticlimactic. Antony's armies and fleet moved into Greece and camped out at Actium on the Adriatic. Octavian moved to counter him with 30 legions and 600 ships under the general command of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, a lifelong friend of Octavian's. The battle was entirely fought at sea, the land forces never engaged. Antony's and Cleopatra's fleet was crushed on 2 September and the love birds fled back to Egypt. Their troops capitulated 46

en masse to Octavian and joined his pursuing troops as they closed in on Alexandria the following year. Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide and Caesarion was sadly but necessarily murdered. However Octavian saw that Antony's children by Cleopatra were spared and raised by the kindly Octavia. Octavian annexed Egypt as a province which ended the history of the last and longest lived of the Hellenistic kingdoms, the remnants of Alexander's empire. In 29 BC, his victory complete and now in control of the entire Roman world, he returned a hero to Rome and began the long process of reorganising the state. His emergence as sole and uncontested rule formally ended both the Republic and the process that destroyed the Republic, the Roman Revolution. The third and final political reinvention of Augustus was about to take place. That the Republic needed a guiding hand was beyond doubt. The old system had failed utterly and, if reinstated, would do so again. Even someone as republican in sentiment as Cicero had finally admitted the need for a "governing leader" of the state (rector). Octavian was to remain in control, that much was clear. But how? Over the next three decades, his position in the state was established in a complex amalgam of legal and non-legal powers and privileges. The process was not instantaneous nor did it adhere to a single agenda relentlessly pursued; rather, it evolved piecemeal over time, occasionally reactionary, occasionally with foresight. Many details remain debated or uncertain, but the overall process is clearly discernible: it extends through two main "Constitutional Settlements" in 27 and 23 BC respectively, some refinements in 19 BC, and sporadic assignations of numerous rights 47

and privileges down to the granting of the ultimate title, "Father of his Country" (Pater Patriae), in 2 BC. Octavian was soon (27 BC) granted the title of Augustus and once again had to go out to the store and purchase new bath towels and dress shirts. He ruled Rome for over 40 years during which he forged a new basis for Roman government, one that proved remarkably stable and long-lived. He evolved a system known as the principate and, though he essentially had permanent and dictatorial powers, he played a subtle game of attending to republican forms such as having his powers renewed for finite periods and never, but never referring to himself as a dictator, certainly not dictator-for-life. His preferred title was "princeps" which refers to first citizen or leading citizen. In all but title the principate was an absolute monarchy with the princeps at the heart of everything. But learning from Caesar's mistakes, Augustus carefully and tactfully retained the respected Republican organs of state such as the Senate, magistracies, and assemblies, who gratefully and consistently granted him the powers he required to do the job. Augustus knew that to accomplish his goals of achieving political stability and permanent power for himself he needed to have a monopoly on power. He also understood that the monopoly could be taken away if he did not provide capable service to his people. So he set about to provide a city of marble to replace the city of wood he inherited, to provide economic stability and to take care of the poor, and to provide what has come to be known as the Pax Romana. He knew he could remain sole princeps if he took care of his customers.

Nothing Succeeds Like Succession With the unlamented deaths of Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 30 BC, the 33-year-old Octavian Caesar (three years later he was given the title of Augustus and that is how he will be subsequently and respectably referred to) was the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. His emergence had brought the Roman Revolution to an end and, in all but name, saw the Roman Republic simply fade away. Its form of government had basically been shown to be incapable of governing an empire. In order to maintain hegemony Augustus engineered still another political self-reinvention. His major concerns were to prevent further civil 48

war, to bring stability to the Roman state, and to avoid assassination (the last required for the first two). His first step was a simple one: he held the consulship continuously from 31-27 BC as the source of his legitimacy. Beginning in 27 he began to regularise his position more systematically. On 13 January 27 Augustus entered the Senate and announced that he was retiring to private life, to putter around his garden, sleep late, perhaps play a little golf. He would buy a condo in Florida. Gnashing of teeth, rendering of togas, teary pleas ensued. In a carefully staged piece of political theatre, the senators pleaded and entreated him to reconsider. "Please, please Augustus, we need you. We don't want to go back to the time when violence in the streets threatened even the lives of Senators." He refused once, he refused twice, but he didn't refuse the third time. If he had, he would have been asked a fourth time This was the "First Constitutional Settlement" of 27 BC and resulted in the presentation of a package of powers and honours that, uncoincidentally, met Augustus's immediate needs. 1. He was renamed Imperator Caesar Augustus, a name replete with symbolic meaning as "Imperator" refers to the command of the army troops. 2. He was given control over a newly made super-province consisting of all the provinces of the Empire that had troops stationed in them (except Africa) and granted a 10 year grant of imperium proconsulare, or provincial gubernatorial authority, valid only outside Rome. 3. The remaining provinces remained under the authority of the Senate. This settlement placed Augustus at the head of all of Rome's legions, administered through personally appointed and trusted legates, and thus reduced the threat of army commanders threatening and pursuing personal ambitions and civil war. Since his imperium was valid only outside of Italy, he continued to hold the consulship and renewed it annually so as to maintain authority and freedom to act within Italy. Augustus had always been somewhat sickly as a youth and had several periods of extended illness during his adulthood. In 23 he suffered a serious malady and both he and the Senate had a brief and horrible vision of what conditions would be like if he died. After his recovery, he returned to the stage of the Senate with another one act play called the "Second Constitutional Settlement," an improvement and refinement of his previous dramatic effort. In this arrangement, his imperium was made greater in that he was now permitted, nay encouraged, to interfere in any province of the Empire. He placed his own people in positions of power from west to east and held them personally responsible for good governance. And within Italy he was granted tribunicia potestas (Tribunician power) for five years (with every likelihood of renewal should he so desire it) which gave him all the prerogatives of a Tribune of the Plebs and allowed him to resign from the consulship, though not from "suggesting" future consuls to be elected by the Senate. 49

Further refinements followed the second settlement: 1. He became chief priest of Rome Pontifex Maximus. 2. The army, now a professional standing force, took an oath of loyalty not to Rome but to Augustus personally. 3. Augustus was declared exempt from certain laws and was granted privileges. 4. He received innumerable honourific titles the most significant of which was Pater Patriae, or Father of His Country. This placed the entire Roman Empire in a relationship to Augustus analogous to that of the family to its head. With his usual tact and keen political sense Augustus could fairly state that all of his powers and titles were, officially, granted to him voluntarily and legally by the Senate and people of Rome (SPQR). His twin powers in the provinces and in Italy gave Augustus an avenue into all regions of the Empire and all wings of administration. Typically, he maintained the familiar and traditional Republican forms: the consuls continue to be elected, the Senate continued to meet regularly, popular votes were taken. In essence, he grafted his New Order atop of the old Republican institutions. He referred to himself not as dictator or King but rather as the familiar title ―princeps‖ (leading citizen) and the entire system came to be known as the Principate. Augustus consulted the Senate about all official business and always treated the senators with courtesy and seemingly sincere deference. And rather than using his legal powers directly, he preferred to have his wishes enacted through the intangible personal quality of ―auctoritas‖ which is roughly equivalent to prestige, influence, authority, and prestige. And the senators were tactful (and sensible) enough in turn not to remind Augustus that his position had initially been won by force of arms and ultimately his authority relied upon his control of the army, which was now his personal fighting force. Nor did they remind him that as Octavian he played a fervent and vigorous role in the prescription/murder of 300 senators during the first triumvirate. In looking back on the reign of Augustus and its legacy to the Roman world, its longevity ought not to be overlooked as a key factor in its success. People had been born and reached middle age without knowing any form of government other than the Principate. Had Augustus died earlier (in 23 BC, for instance), matters may have turned out very differently. The attrition of the civil wars on the old Republican aristocracy and the longevity of Augustus, therefore, must be seen as major contributing factors in the 50

transformation of the Roman state into a monarchy in these years. Augustus's own experience, his patience, his tact, and his great political acumen also played their part. All of these factors allowed him to put an end to the chaos of the Late Republic and reestablish the Roman state on a firm footing. He directed the future of the empire down many lasting paths, from the existence of a standing professional army stationed at or near the frontiers, to the dynastic principle so often employed in the imperial succession, to the embellishment of the capital at the emperor's expense. Augustus's ultimate legacy, however, was the peace and prosperity the empire was to enjoy for the next two centuries under the system he initiated. His memory was enshrined in the political ethos of the Imperial age as a paradigm of the good emperor; although every emperor adopted his name, Caesar Augustus, only a handful earned genuine comparison with him. And yet, in one area Augustus was doomed to failure, a failure that greatly worried him and was the source of his greatest frustration: the succession. While his tact and the careful construction of his position shielded Augustus from contemporary accusations of grasping ambition and lust for power, it did bring with it an unpleasant corollary: tremendous uncertainty as to what happened when the "princeps" died. Technically, Augustus's position was a particular package of powers granted to him by the senate and people, for fixed periods. When he died, therefore, technically, it was up to the senate and people to decide what happened next. They could appoint another princeps to replace Augustus, or return to the republican system of popular votes and annual magistrates. Both of these options, however, would undoubtedly lead to civil war. In life Augustus realised that there was no possibility of leaving the choice of what happened after his death to the senate and people, despite their legal position as the source of his powers. Augustus was in a real bind in the matter of the succession. His solution will be familiar to Kremlinologists: the granting of signs of preference to favored individuals, in this case drawn largely from within the princeps' own house. In selecting members of his extended family, Augustus was behaving entirely within the ethos of the Roman aristocracy, for whom family was paramount. It would also ensure that the name "Caesar," which had been so vital in establishing Augustus's own control over the armed forces, would remain at the head of the state. But the informal nature of Augustus's succession arrangements, even if forced on him by the nature of his position, opened the door to domestic turmoil and proved the single most consistently destabilizing political factor in his reign and those of future emperors. It was one of the first things on his mind as soon as the boats of Antony and Cleopatra sailed off to Egypt after defeat at Actium. Almost immediately he began to look to his nephew Marcellus as a potential successor and married him off to his daughter Julia and granted certain "elective" offices. Augustus‘s serious illness of 23 BC sidetracked the Marcellus Express in favour of the more experienced and mature Marcus Agrippa which,

51

as it turned out, was a good move because the young Marcellus died soon after at the age of 19. Agrippa, a childhood friend of Augustus and primary military officer of Rome, was soon chosen to comfort the widowed Julia in marriage and was in a clear position to succeed Augustus should that prove necessary. But things became complicated when they produced two boys Gaius and Lucius who were quickly adopted by Augustus and placed in line for succession when they achieved majority. There were also Augustus's two stepsons, sons of his wife Livia, Tiberius and Drusus. Augustus's succession cup seemed to runneth over. The intent behind these labyrinthine machinations appears to have been to create a pool of eligible candidates, headed by a frontrunner. Any other princes as were advanced in the background are best considered as insurance (proven necessary) against fate or as indicators of Augustus's preferences for the third generation of the Principate. In this way, Agrippa was to succeed Augustus, but the adoption of Gaius and Lucius signaled Augustus's desire that one of them succeed Agrippa. But Agrippa died in 12 BC throwing calculations off but once again Augustus used his daughter Julia in marriage to signify the current favourite. Tiberius was a capable but dour and perverse individual who wanted to marry Julia as much as she did him. It was clear that Augustus preferred his grandchildren but understood that the immediate requirement was for an experienced adult, or Tiberius. Then Lucius died in 2 A.D. and Gaius two years after that. Tiberius was now in the driver‘s seat but still Augustus's dislike for him always brought up the possibility of other candidates. Tiberius was pressured to adopt his nephew Germanicus. Meanwhile Julia who was twice widowed and now married to a man she despised, looked for love in all the wrong places (many, many wrong places) and was exiled to a tiny island by her father. When Augustus finally died in 15 AD after a rule of 45 years Tiberius was all that was left and he proved to be just the sort of ruler one can expect from such a succession programme. In all, then, the succession problem was a difficult one for Augustus, and his solutions only perpetuated it for all future emperors. Despite the internal difficulties engendered by the issue, Augustus was keen to present a 52

united image of the imperial house to the populace. This is best illustrated by the "Altar of the Augustan Peace" (Ara Pacis Augustae), dedicated in January, 9 BC which presented to the people, on the south frieze, of the imperial family--women and children included--as a corporate entity. The message of dynastic harmony and the promise of future stability emanating from the imperial house are palpable. The reality, as we have just seen, was rather different. And we haven't even yet discussed Tiberius's successor, the psychotic Caligula.

With this submission I will no longer produce chronological essays on the history of ancient Rome. We are leaving in six weeks and I barely have enough time to get through the dramatic Julio-Claudian dynasty. What I will do instead to make up for this heartbreak, is to write an essay or two on a couple of topics that are of interest to me and I suspect will be to you. These are religion, aqueducts, and Roman games. Afterwards, we will be off on sabbatical to discern and report on primary sources.

Religion of Rome Time relatively moves more rapidly the closer one gets to the desired object so that, there be only ventisette days remaining before we leave, I haven't much time to counter my standard pretravel paranoia with reality. There are always toothaches, twisted ankles, colds, and the more severely limiting kidney stones, heart problems, and, in the worst case scenario, morte. But even I can't realistically place much faith in a 53

miserable outcome, certainly not at such a late date, and it seems that all augers are good for an uncomplicated buono viaggio. I have already placed a hold on the mail and the newspaper, bought my Euros (yes, it is early, but the exchange rate is quite volatile and so long as I don't look at the latest figures in the business section I am happy enough with what I got, much better than three years ago, much better than last year), reserved a place for Bailey at his ruinously expensive home kennel, bought what I need (Randi was shopping all rainy weekend for her necessities), and made -- and paid for -reservations for the Roman sites that necessitate them: Musei Vaticani, Necropolis below St Peters, Galleria Borghese, and the French embassy in the Palazzo Farnese. An unexpected piece of fodder for my pre-travel insanity has blessedly not panned out. The World Cup began this week and I found to my horror that the final match will be held on the day of our arrival, July 11. At first the scenario played out thusly: Italy will be in the final (as defending champion, realistically possible) and the game will be scheduled for around the time of our arrival. The taxi reserved to pick us up at Leonardo da Vinci airport will not be there because the driver will be watching the game at his local pub. There will be a shortage of baggage handlers with the expected result. Long lines at passport control and customs will form. When we finally get to town whatever took us there will be unable, due to traffic restrictions, to get within a kilometre of the Palazzo Olivia. Every restaurant and grocery will be closed. We will be wandering the streets with our baggage for hours, hungry and thirsty and exhausted. Once I learned that the game is due to be played at 8:30 PM that night (we arrive around noon), my cursed imagination relaxed a bit. Unless, of course, we arrive eight hours late in which case .... If I were a citizen of Rome during the Republic or Empire these worries would be pointless. Among the dozens of gods would be at least one responsible for travellers and I need only recite a proper prayer and make a small sacrifice to guarantee an uncomplicated arrival. Like in most things, Roman attitudes towards religion were eminently practical. Their relationship was quite businesslike and interactions were in the form of a contract in which the beseecher performed a rigidly detailed ceremony and made an enforceable vow to do something or other should the god keep their end of the deal. For example: I am planning to start a small business as a locksmith. On the day the shop is due to be opened I must publicly bargain with the god of keys, Portunes, and possibly also the goddess of the abundance and prosperity, Abundantia, and just to be sure also the goddess of fortune, Fortuna, and I wouldn't want to leave out Sors, the god of luck. There were specific prayers for just about everything in Rome. There were so many required circumstances that it is a marvel Rome had time to conquer the world. The 54

nature of Roman religion gave birth to many gods, many of whom had multiple roles. The contract between mortal and god required the god to answer my prayer positively and for me to attend unerringly and by the book to the ritualised prayer and sacrifice.

Here's an example of a prayer quoted by Marcus Porcius Cato: ―Father Mars, I pray and beseech thee that thou be gracious and merciful to me, my house, and my household; to which intent I have bidden this suovetaurilia to be led around my land, my ground, my farm; that thou keep away, ward off and remove sickness, seen and unseen, barrenness and destruction, ruin and unseasonable influence; and that thou permit my harvests, my grain, my vine-yards and my plantations to flourish and to come to good issue, preserve in health my shepherds and my flocks, and give good health and strength to me, my house and my household To this intent, to the intent of purifying my farm, my land and my ground, and of making an expiation, as I have said, deign to accept the offering of these suckling victims; Father Mars, to the same intent deign to accept the offering of these suckling offerings.‖

55

Roman prayers were phrased as legal documents that could obligate gods for particular actions and protection. In this particular case, Cato was praying to Mars for a blessing upon his farmland, which he accompanied with many sacrifices. This prayer, like many other Roman prayers, was formulated in order to address every possible detail and foreseeable disaster, in order to protect his land from disaster, prevent gods from ill motivation, and to obligate their protection. The prayer must be recited correctly word for word. If Cato forgot to say ―ward off‖ or incanted ―wheat‖ instead of ―grain‖ or accidentally stumbled over a word the prayer had to be stopped and he had to start all over from the top. There was good money to be made in the business of contract attorney to the gods who, should they determine an uncorrected error was made, were free to not only ignore the prayer but to have the additional delight of ruining his crops. Following the correct statement of the prayer it was necessary to provide some sort of offering, appropriate to the occasion, to the god. For family prayers it could involve the sacrifice of an animal like a chicken or, for Roman vegetarians or ur-PETA types, milk or cheese could be left for the god to pick up later. For

more significant offerings, such as those of the state for good weather or military victory, an animal sacrifice was absolutely necessary. These were very elaborate and very bloody affairs. The unfortunate animal, often an ox or a bull, was led peacefully to the altar where the prayer had already been correctly intoned (there are some who think the animal was drugged prior to his big moment in order to avoid certain problems). Prior to having its throat cut by the shawled priest, wine and sacred bread (baked by the Vestals) were sprinkled over his head. Then it was messily disemboweled so that its innards could be examined (early form of kosher and halal) for bad omens. If the priest determined that there was a problematic finding in the large intestine the sacrificed animal was excused from further honours. Oops. Sorry about that, Big Blue. There were other oxen around should it be necessary for a pinch-offering appearance. In order to avoid any discomfiture being caused by ill-omened bowels, or slip-ups in ritual, it was usual to make a major sacrifice on the day before a grand occasion. Thus any possible errors during the big event would be rectified and excused in advance. Having passed the inspection the animal‘s internal organs would be burnt on the altar, often economically appearing later on the table of the post-offering feast. 56

To lighten up the festivities a flute player would busily cover up any unpleasant sounds by making a few of his own. Like the prayer, should anything about the sacrifice go wrong, it had to be repeated. But only after another, additional, sacrifice had been made to allay any anger of the god about the failure of the first one. For this purpose one would usually sacrifice a pig. Thereafter the authentic sacrifice would be repeated. It could be a rather lengthy process if the priest was having a bad day. The sacrifice of entire multitudes of animals was quite frequent. It was no coincidence that there was a Greek word for the sacrifice of a hundred oxen - a hecatomb. Compared to modern society, the Romans seem extremely superstitious, like a pitcher who never steps on the foul line when returning to the dugout or a hockey play-off beard. Their world was full of unexplained phenomena, darkness, and fear. To Romans these superstitions were a perfectly natural part of the relationship between gods and men. They would seek to read the future by examining the entrails of sacrificial animals, the liver being of special importance for that purpose. They would observe lightning and interpret its meanings. And they would try and put understandable consequence to any unusual phenomena which occurred. The belief that objects or living beings could possess special spiritual properties was widespread in primitive societies. The Romans were no strangers to this idea. Stones, trees, springs, caves, lakes, swamps, mountains - even animals and furniture - were all deemed to be hosts to spirits (numina). Stones in particular were often seen to contain spirits, especially if they were boundary stones, dividing one man's property from the other. Many Roman also wore amulets and lucky charms, to avert the evil eye. Marriages were planned for certain days and certain months to prevent them from being overshadowed by bad omens. It was an omen of disaster to have a black cat enter the house, have a snake fall from the roof into the yard, or for a beam of the house to split. To spill wine, oil or even water could also be the sign that bad things were about to happen. Another prophecy of bad luck was to meet a mule in the street carrying an herb called hipposelinum, which was used to decorate tombs. To stumble over the doorstep when leaving one's house was considered a bad omen. Many would choose to read this as a sign and hence spend the day at home. Especially on work days. Never should one mention fire at a banquet. Although if done, one could remedy it by pouring water on the table. Disasters were seen by Romans as manifestations of divine disapproval, and unusual phenomena as portents of catastrophe. To hear of such happenings could cause panic in a society riddled with superstitions, particularly in times of crisis. No official state business was every really 57

held without the taking of omens and auspices (signs from birds). For this purpose an augur (there were fifteen) would be present. He would mark out a square on the ground with his staff, from where the omens should be observed. Significantly though, he was not the man who actually took the sighting. This was left to a state official. The auger acted as his advisor. So, if the official would observe some birds flying by, he could then call upon the augur to help interpret their meaning. Those with excellent memories will recall that Romulus and Remus had such a learned and theological debate when determining who would rule and who would die. Augerian interpretations were supple and, under the right circumstances, went to the highest bidder. When necessary a politician could approach an augur to determine if he was fit for office or if his latest power grab was sanctioned by the gods and an old-boy negotiation would set a price for a positive ruling. Julius Caesar benefited more than once from such a predetermined outcome which apparently taught him nothing; it was an augur who warned him about ―the Ides of March‖ beware thing. The lituus in which he used for divination. design like the

the augur's right-hand was the staff to mark the templum, the sacred space It was crowned in bronze with a spiral one shown.

The augurs also presided over the installation of elected officials and were called upon to mark the boundaries of sacred temples prior to their construction. From these activities we derive the English word "inauguration." Speaking of temples, a brief word about them will bring this submission to a conclusion. Roman temples consisted of unambiguous and understandable architectural features that would be recognized by all. Topped by a gable roof, they consisted of deep porches marked off by a regular series of columns. They were elevated off the ground and 58

approached by a wide staircase in front. Their interior was frescoed but otherwise bare except for a statue of the specific god for whom the temple was erected. Many were constructed as the fulfilment of a vow/contract in which one was promised in return for a positive outcome. They were often found in significant public areas such as fora and major trading routes. Prayers and sacrifices were always accomplished in front of the temple, never within. The temple‘s function was to house the statues and impress the public. At the time of the founding of the Republic (509 BC) a Temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus was constructed at the peak of the Capitoline Hill in Rome and set the standard for all future temples from which they took their name: Jupiter Capitolinus. This consisted of an interior divided into three rooms, each with their own statue. From left to right they were Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva, a group collectively known as the Capitoline Triad. Travellers to major cities throughout the empire would always find such a Temple in a prominent location, usually in the provincial forum, usually on a hill. The Lincoln Memorial in Washington (and to a lesser degree the Jefferson Memorial) is entirely based on such a Roman temple. There will be one more chapter submitted prior to departure and that will have a waterlogged theme. To be followed by ample time for you to catch up while we go about Rome gathering data.

Rome and its Water Just two weeks to go and my kidney stones continue to emulate Rip Van Winkle. Italy has lost in the first round and there should be fewer disruptions during the final than if they had shown some effort. So far as I know no strikes are planned at Air Canada and the Palazzo Olivia has confirmed my reservations. Whatever will I find to worry about between now and 10 July? As promised, this will be our last pretrip submission and it will centre upon water. After that you will all have to wait at least a month before finding out if my paranoia was actually paranoid or just prescient.

59

One of the unique pleasures about wandering around the Centro Storico of Rome is the ability to refill your water bottles at any of hundreds of street fountains found everywhere. Some warn ―acqua non potabile,‖ but it's perfectly safe to partake from the others, as the locals do. These fountains run all day and all night, in rain and in sun, and many have been doing so for hundreds of years. They, along with the hundreds of massive, majestically carved fountains, are the modern-day expressions of the Roman solution to the perpetual problem of water for urban dwellers. Much is known about the Roman system of water distribution because in 1429 a scholar studying at the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino (of World War II bombing) discovered a copy of a work written in 97 A.D. describing the aqueducts and the allotment system that brought their water to private and public consumers. The author, Sextus Julius Frontinius, was a Roman aristocrat who served Rome in various functions including proconsul of Britain (he put down a Welsh rebellion) and always showed himself to be a man of inflexible integrity, a man of virtus (Roman moral qualities). He was appointed Chief Commissioner for Water in 97 and immediately set about inspecting his new domain. He found the aqueducts in disrepair and a great deal of water lost in transit or to fraud and corruption. Many outflow pipes had been tampered with and sold off by departmental employees. He made it the rest of his life's work to repair the system and to prosecute its miscreants. His work, ―De Acquis,‖ is highly technical and was therefore ignored by scholars for hundreds of years; it was not translated into a modern language until 1820. Today it is viewed as an essential primary source for an understanding of water in ancient Rome. For the first 450 years of its existence Rome had no other water but that of its springs, wells, and the Tiber River. As Rome expanded and its population increased to what would become by far the greatest in the ancient world these sources were no longer adequate. Cities expand in proportion to their water supply and Rome was in danger of reaching its natural limit. In 312 BC the two incumbent Censors (public-works approved by the Senate were entrusted to the Censors for supervising their completion) were tasked to find a new supply of water and to devise a means to carry it to Rome. A spring was located approximately 10 miles east of Rome and Censor Appius Claudius (who also was responsible for the road south of Rome named after him – the Appian Way) had an aqueduct designed that became the model for future construction. In all, eleven aqueducts were completed by 226 A.D. to supply 1,212 public fountains, 926 lesser public baths, and eleven great Imperial thermae (baths).

60

Never had any city known such a display of water. Pliny the Elder wrote, "But if anyone will note the abundance of water skilfully brought into the city, for public uses, for baths, for public basins, for houses, suburban gardens, and villas; if he will note the high aqueducts required for maintaining the proper elevation; the mountains which had to be pierced for the same reason; and the valleys it was necessary to fill up; he will consider that the whole territorial orb offers nothing more marvellous." Aqueducts were expensive to build and maintain and therefore were commissioned by rich private citizens or by emperors. After a promising source of water was identified the health of the local people, their animals, and their crops were examined to ascertain the healthful qualities of their water. Assuming the water tasted good, was reasonably clear, and flowed abundantly, the aqueduct builder was ready to proceed. First the route had to be surveyed and the gradients calculated. Roman aqueducts operated by gravity and it was necessary to maintain a slight, steady downward slope. The route was then marked out by stakes and construction began. Several feeder branches were constructed at the source to tap the water and lead it into a collection basin from which it entered the main channel to begin its journey to Rome. Along the way were settling tanks which slowed the water down allowing impurities such as sand and gravel to collect at the bottom. As much as geographically possible the water conduits ran underground in pipes and trenches where they were protected from weather and sabotage. At many points, however, the conduits had to be above ground to preserve the gradient and for these enormous and familiar arcades were constructed, marching across the countryside where many are yet found today.

61

Once arriving in Rome the water entered a complex distribution network of which very little survives. In Frontinus‘s day there were 247 distribution centres within Rome. From these points the water continued to public fountains and basins as well as to subscribing private homes and businesses. The pipes were of lead which has given us the word "plumber" from the Latin word for the metal. Once the water was released it ran continuously, diverted only when the channels required a cleaning out. Spigots and taps were uncommon and, like today, aqueduct water ran 24 hours a day. The large volume of excess water drained off into Rome's sewers flushing them into the Tiber.

62

Of the 1200+ fountains recorded in the year 210 less than five remain. It is not difficult to understand why. Of all works of architecture the urban fountain is the most vulnerable to destruction once this function comes to an end. Beginning with the first Gothic sack of Rome in 410 the aqueducts became rather easy targets of invaders who well understood that depriving Rome of its water made it far more vulnerable to attack. By the Middle Ages Rome had regressed to seeking water again from local wells and the Tiber. This explains the demographic shift of the Roman population from the hills westward to the formerly barren Campus Martius. Since you no longer could bring water to the ancient hills of Rome, you had to bring the Romans to the available sources of water. Among other factors the lack of a steady and clean water source negatively impacted upon the population of Rome. While more precise figures are impossible and historians disagree wildly, a safe approximation for the population of Rome in the first century A.D. is above 1 million people. Invasions, neglect, and an unhealthy environment reduced this figure to well below 50,000 by the 13th century. Rome did not return to its Imperial size until the 20th century. No other city in the Western world 63

has experienced an equivalent change of fortunes that so successfully reversed. During the Renaissance the papacy repaired the ancient aqueducts and built new ones of their own which played an enormous part in the renaissance of Rome. For each of the eleven ancient aqueducts there was a termination fountain called a castellum, a display fountain of massive monumental proportions which were large enough to bear a large inscription naming the Emperor or other public benefactor who had brought the water to Rome. Most are totally lost and what can be identified are only its remnant statues. The best preserved is the the Julia Fountain in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. It is all that remains of a great Roman fountain of imperial times and the only relic of a terminal castellum aquarium to have survived. The two white marble "Trophies of Marius" that once decorated the fountain were relocated by Pope Sixtus V in 1592 to the Campidoglio where they now surround Michelangelo's wondrous staircase.

64

The popes who rebuilt and repaired and expanded the system retained the terminal monumental fountain system and made damn sure that each was substantial enough to contain a large enough inscription providing sufficient praise and credit. This is from above the famous Trevi fountain, a modern example of a castellum (since the Renaissance called a mostra). Principal consumers of the product of classical Roman aqueducts were the 11 Imperial Baths, as well as the large number of lesser baths of which there were more than 800 by the fall of Rome. Since only the homes of the city's wealthiest citizens had private bathing facilities, going to the baths was a public activity. To the Romans, a bath represented the refreshment of mind and spirit as well as body. It was a daily ritual, it was a social event, it was an opportunity to chat with friends or business clients, and it 65

was a pleasurable sensory experience available to all citizens regardless of sex, race, creed, or social position. There were tubs and pools to be sure but the larger baths also contained libraries, shops, lecture halls, and art galleries and served as the equivalent to our modern community centres. Baths were usually free of charge so even the city's poorest citizens could sit among aristocrats and have a soak, mixing their urine with their betters. Sadly, too little remains today of the baths but the brick-faced ruins of the Imperial thermae of Diocletian and Caracalla give us an impression to which we can add our imagination and the available numerous Roman literary sources. There were coloured marble panelling, mosaic floors, bronze and marble statues, intricate stucco decoration, splashing fountains, glass windows, and polished bronze and silver fixtures. The bathers entered through a vestibule where an attendant directed them into one of the dressing rooms where clothes were left. Wrapped in linen towels and wearing clogs (to protect their feet from the burning floors -- the source of heat was in the walls and in the basement) they would proceed from room to room in a particular order. The first stop was usually the tepidarium (tepid water) followed by the calidarium (hot, hot) and finally into the frigidarium. These rooms generally contained large, shallow swimming pools or very large bath tubs (some of these tubs can be seen today as the basins of Roman fountains -- nobody can recycle like the Romans). There were also the sudaterium, or sweat room, for a massage and the solarium, where people could lie in the sun. Such colossal establishments as the Baths of Caracalla required a colossal number of service personnel to keep the running smoothly. Of course slaves and prisoners of war did the most gruelling work in semi-darkness and hellish heat stoking the wood-burning furnaces that heated the baths. Huge stands of timber disappeared into those furnaces. There were also salaried employees on the payroll including door attendants, toilet attendants, towel handlers, laundry workers, and masseurs. Credit for the relative absence of waterborne infections must go to the unlimited water supply (from the aqueducts) and the nearly complete absence of standing water. Ingenious hydraulic engineering insured a constant flow of fresh water and a corresponding outflow of that which had been used. Since the Romans had no soap they cleaned themselves by scraping off the accumulated sweat and dirt with a strigil, a metal tool (or paying to have it done for them, or demanding their slaves do it for them).

66

It is doubtful we'll take advantage of it (cost, distance from apartment, and time of night) but every summer the Teatro dell'Opera uses the remarkably evocative and romantic ruins of the Baths of Caracalla to serve as a backdrop for their performances. During our time in Rome this year, it will be Aida, which requires a monumental set. It will probably be something I will always regret not doing, but I doubt we will do it. This visit to Rome has been a long time in the planning, studying, and anticipation. We fully anticipate that nothing will have been done in vain.

The Introduction is Over, the Epic Begins We returned Thursday afternoon (22 July) so that gives me more than sufficient time to fully integrate our visit to Rome and to begin to acquaint you with what we did. You will all be pleased to know that my 62 page introduction, prologue, preamble, preface, prelude, and/or overture -- it was long enough to be all of them -- are at long last concluded and it's time to get the show on the road. Just after we got off it. 67

As in the first volume of this trilogy (Gaber, Steven. The 2007 Roman Vacation. Toronto: self-published, 2007-08.) we will begin with a few impressions of the most and least pleasant burning subjective experiences. The Worst: The heat. It is true that anyone, such as me, who chooses to visit central Italy in July faces the risk of continuous heat and humidity. Unfortunately, the entire period of our viaggio consisted of above average temperatures and humidity. The "normal" expectation for mid-July is 30° (86°F) and we counted on +/- of a couple of degrees which seemed tolerable, especially since rain was quite unlikely. After a cool and rainy June and first week of July the city turned evil upon our arrival. It was 32° the first day, rising to 35° (95°F) after three days, then to 38° (100°F) for a few Satanic days before crashing down to 35° and then finally 33° upon our departure. I now see that it is 30° there today and expected to remain in the high 20s for the next week or so. Rome is mocking me. We are savvy enough travellers not to permit such uncontrollable variables from affecting our pleasures and experiences too much but we did have to make some allowances such as extending the length of our afternoon siestas, planning our daily itineraries a little more carefully so as to avoid wasted motion, skipping a few worthy places that were out of the way, taking more buses and taxis than we would have ordinarily, and not wandering through every alleyway in search of surprises.

68

Among the advantages of travelling in Rome are the omnipresent street fountains whose main current purpose is to refill water bottles and as both locals and tourists order a litre of water (naturale=flat, gassata=carbonated) with both lunch and dinner hydrating was never a problem. In the end the heat was an inconvenience that had to be attended to but did not have a major impact. Still, it would have been kinder if it had been just a bit cooler. But then, we could have chosen June in which case we would have been spending too much time avoiding thunderstorms. Traffic. Our apartment was located in the Centro Storico, a district of narrow winding streets made up entirely of cobblestones with sidewalks that were unusable. On each of these narrow streets there are cars and motorcycles either parked willy-nilly or progressing at medium speed adjacent to any pedestrian struggling to find out on what street they are stumbling and whether or not they should turn at the next corner, should they be able to determine the name of that street. While we never felt imminently threatened it did require certain techniques to successfully navigate the system. For instance, map reading must be done while hugging a wall. For instance, you don't make a move in any direction without looking behind. For instance, you don't stop in the middle of the road to pick up a dropped coin unless you successfully reconnoitre the immediate vicinity. In addition, one must take little steps and big steps to get around approaching pedestrians. If a tour group is approaching, abandon ye all hope until they are past. Unlike Paris, Rome has few wide streets and fewer of them are close to being straight. When you come to a major crossing such as Il Corso, Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, Via 69

Plebescito, and major piazzas the traffic is continuous except at the few and far between traffic lights. Yet, in our entire visit we never saw a pedestrian struck, we never saw an automobile accident, we hardly ever heard a horn honked in anger. It may take a bit of concentration but after a day or two we had successfully adapted our ambulating to the situation and had no particular difficulty surviving a walk. Perhaps the most troubling acclimatization we had to make to traffic was the unique and seemingly insane way Romans deal with crosswalks. While traffic lights are nearly nonexistent every road, except those that are extraordinarily narrow, has crosswalks at reasonable intervals. How does the pedestrian cross the road? When you enter the crosswalk traffic does not stop and the inexperienced visitor may have to wait quite a while before the Red Sea is parted. The technique is that once you start across a crosswalk, you keep going. You do not stop to let a car go past, you do not stop to tie your shoe or pick up your wallet, you do not retreat back to the starting point, you just keep going to the other side. Like a good skeet shooter the Roman driver anticipates your pace and adjusts their speed and direction to yours. They do not expect you to stop and should you do so there may be a squealing of brakes. It sounds risky and anxiety-producing and for the first day or two we often waited to join a convoy of pedestrians already on the crosswalk. But soon enough we gave the keep a‘goin‘ method a chance and it always worked. Every time.

70

There is obviously a tension between pedestrian and driver but so long as you keep your wits about you, pay attention, and obey their traditions all will be well. We were easily able to cross the widest streets such as the Via dei Fori Imperiali without fear or incident. Of course, on our return to Toronto, we must strike this method from our memories, and quickly, or we will face imminent death. Disrespect.

Putti are those plump little naked boys with wings that one often sees in Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, and Rococo art. Typically, a putto (the singular form) depicts an angel or cherub in a religious scene, but he may also come in the form of Cupid. In either case, a putto's presence symbolizes love, whether Divine or of a more earthly nature.

Unfortunately, too many young women from 14-25 years of age confuse this concept with the Latin word for prostitute when deciding what is and isn't appropriate apparel for visiting a major European capital city where local people go to work, go shopping, stroll with their children, and deal with an onslaught of young tourists. Just a little bit of reading about Roman traditions will show that they rarely wear shorts touring the day and dress appropriately to the season and the location. 71

I understand that I am opening myself up to accusations of being an old fart or a Mr. Grundy but I have always believed that one should show some considerable respect for the culture and traditions of places one visits. Sure, at night local young people dress appropriately to their age and situation and much skin is on exhibit. And I am not such an old fart that this is at all unpleasurable. But when I see young woman after young woman walking upon a morning on the shopping streets or local neighbourhoods dressed as if they are solely concerned with attracting attention rather than attending to attractions, I find it disrespectful. Worse, they go into museums and palaces dressed in such a manner. Worst of all, they make their way into churches as if they are attending a rave. It is made very clear to all who read a guidebook or a sign posted at every church entrance that it is forbidden to cross the threshold with shoulders uncovered, in shorts, or in short skirts. Unfortunately, with the exception of St Peter‘s and a few other major churches, there are rarely staff available to police this requirement and even the availability of free scarves in the anteroom with which to cover shoulders or thighs does little to impact upon these young women. Call me prude, call me Goody two shoes; I remain ashamed of the lack of judgment and consideration shown by far too many. By the way, some of the indecent or filthy Tshirts and shorts worn by young men were also entirely inappropriate for visiting places that many consider holy but this problem was primarily female. The Best: Chiesas. There are more than 900 churches in Rome. A few date back to the postConstantinian Roman Empire (San Clemente, Santa Pudenziana, San Giovanni in Laterano, San Pietro in Vincoli et al), others to the post-fall period when Rome was beginning its extended collapse (Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Santa Prassede, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere et al), still others to the wretched mediaeval period in Roman history (Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Santa Maria sopra Minerva - note the cult of Mary typical of the Middle Ages – et al), and many from the Renaissance and Baroque period of the Roman revival (Santa Maria del Popolo, St. Peter‘s Basilica, San Luigi dei Francesi, Il Gesu et al). Our plan was to visit several every morning because most open quite early -- some as early as 7 AM -- and all contain at least one or two items worth viewing. They tend to close to visitors in the afternoons and when they are holding religious services but most reopen again around 4 PM for a few hours so they are quite easy to get into. 72

Like the palaces that contain museums (Musei Vaticani, Palazzo Barberini, Galleria Borghese et al) they not only contain magnificent frescoes and sculpture but are themselves, architecturally, works of art. For most of the post-Roman Empire period the Roman Catholic Church ruled Rome and was the only source of funding for building and often the choice of building was a church. Each Pope made sure that, in the tradition of Roman emperors building temples in thanks for success, during their reign their name would be placed in the frieze within the pediment in thanks for their own good fortune. The earliest tended to be in the style of basilicas which were essentially rectangular with two rows of columns creating side aisles and were based upon the Roman tradition of multipurpose centres of courts, shops, and places of business. Later the concept of a transept altered the basic shape into a Greek or Latin cross but the aisles remained as in a Basilica. During the latter part of the Middle Ages the side aisles of the nave were replaced by a series of family chapels some of which were sumptuously decorated. Following the Council of Trent which began in 1545 it became common for the church to combat the Reformation by creating churches of dramatic decoration and overwhelming embellishment. We visited many, and they will be described in detail later, but we passed without much notice many others due to time constraints. I doubt there is one in all of Rome that is not worth at least an extended peek and most fairly merit a full dissertation.

73

Fontanas. Fountains are a Roman tradition. Ancient Rome contained 1,212 documented fountains of which only seven have survived. They served both as the only source of safe water and as symbols of the power and beneficence of those who built and maintained the aqueduct system. Many contained marvellous statues as decorations and included spectacular, larger fountains called castellum that marked the place where aqueduct water was first delivered to the city. This system remains in place. For example, the beyond-famous Trevi fountain is a modern castellum (now referred to as mostre, or exhibition fountain) where the water from the Acqua Vergine aqueduct first reaches Rome. There are now 280 major fountains not including innumerable private and wall fountains. While Paris‘s

fountains are better cared for in many 74

ways, the sculpture contained in Roman fountains is incomparable and the cleverness within which water cascades is just one of the many pleasures of walking around a Roman fountain. Each aqueduct leads to a mostre and then divides throughout its target area leading to a fountain in many piazzas, on many walls, and, unfortunately, too often in the middle of horrendous traffic circles. Fountains are everywhere in Rome. Besides the larger and more dramatic fountains, there are smaller and charming examples such as Bernini's Bee Fountain and the beloved Fountain of the Tortoises. if you pass by a residential or even office building in many parts of Rome and are permitted to cross the entryway into the courtyard you will often find a lovely wall fountain (for some reason often decorated with lions) whose purpose is only to charm, not to sate. Some fountains shoot their water upwards because they have sufficient water pressure (like the pair in Piazza San Pietro), others drip downwards for one basin to another to another, and still others are on ground level because the pressure is too weak to push it upwards. An example of this last type is the Fontana della Barcaccia in front of the Spanish steps. As our tour continues you will certainly be exposed to a number of brilliantly imagined and majestically sculpted examples of one of the most profound pleasures of walking around the Eternal City. When this folly is finally completed I encourage you to review my description of the three fountains of the Piazza Navona which, unless you are wholly oblivious to exquisiteness, will drive you to reserve a flight to Rome as soon as possible. Traffic Control Buttons. 75

Yes, I know I listed "traffic"

among the worst aspects of our visit but I must put a good word in for perhaps the most surprising discovery of this month‘s sojourn. All major cities contain poles with little buttons that one is supposed to press in order to stop opposing traffic and allow you to go to the other side. We all know quite well what actually happens when one presses one of those buttons: a buzzer goes off at the Central Traffic Bureaucracy Office and all of its employees fall to the floor shrieking with laughter at the thought that you were idiotic enough to think that pressing the button would accomplish anything at all. Not so in Rome. I press the button, count uno due tre quattro cinque sei sette otto nove and before I can say ―dieci‖ the light has changed and we can cross. At first try I thought it was simply a defective mechanism but as time after time it worked, and worked quickly, I understood that I was in the presence of a miracle. There are many remarkable things about Rome. This may have topped them all.

Sabato, 10 luglio

Addio Toronto Condo to locker to get luggage, then by limo to Pearson International Airport, across the check-in counter to passport control, then by plane or boat or foot across the Atlantic Ocean to Aeroporto Fiumicino in Italian Lazio. Here the fortunate ones through money or influence or luck might obtain entry visas and scurry to Rome, and from Rome to the rental apartment. But I sense an interminable delay and must wait...and wait...and wait. There is an evident logic to eastward bound European flights leaving North America in the evening. This gets you into your destination sometime during the later part of the next morning when you can usually check into your hotel/apartment or, at worst, be able to leave your luggage while they ready your room. There is something quite nice about arriving in the morning, enthusiastically (albeit exhaustedly) geared up to adapt to your new state of affairs and eager to explore the ‗hood.

76

Yet, for me this is not so agreeable; I wake up on flight day quite early after a restless sleep and now have to face another 12 hours or so with little to do except, like a schoolboy approaching 3 PM, glumly watch the minute hand of the grandfather clock revolve ever more slowly, if it actually moves at all. All the zillion details have been completed except for readying Bailey for his pickup and packing and these are tasks delegated to Randi because she can actually realize them. I have already checked in online, put our Euros and passports into their neck pouch, placed in two neat piles all that will be carried on and all that will be checked, arranged my seemingly infinite number of pills into their proper cubbyholes, as well as anything else I am even vaguely competent to do. So I do what I am able to, which is to strut and fret my petty pace. Clearly, this is another tale told by an idiot. Of course, like in the ordeal in a dental chair when time does not entirely stand still, 6 PM eventually arrives simultaneously with the ever-reliable limo driver and we are off to a traffic- and accident-free half hour ride to Pearson where both the checkin and security lines are reasonably lengthy but not infinite and we have a couple of hours remaining until boarding. I would rather walk back and forth at the airport than in my living room. Getting your boarding passes while jettisoning your luggage lifts the troubles off of one's back and is one of the exalted moments of life. We are on our way even if our plane is not yet at the gate. Flying time to Rome (eastward) is approximately eight and one-half hours and we leave on time at 9:40. Air Canada, in their never-ending endeavor to obtain profit from what once had been routine customer service, now charges $50 each way for seats in the bulkhead row or in the exit door rows. While I am rarely blissful at forking out $200 on top of the standard steerage charge it was never the slightest uncertainty that we would take advantage of sitting in an exit row seat. We would probably have paid more. The legroom is similar to what first-class had been before they introduced flatbed seating, you can actually stand up in front of your seat to stretch out, and because it is an exit row the folks in front of you can't recline. The only downside is that the seats, because of their proximity to the door, can be a bit colder but taking an extra blanket along resolves that easily enough.

77

Question: why do they serve a full meal at 11:30 at night? At least they had the civility to provide free mediocre wine in cute little bottles so that I could have something to drink with the roll which, while it tastes like sandpaper, is all I care to eat at that ungodly time. I have already changed my watch to Rome time (add six hours) so I could begin to get my mind into my jet-lag-minimising schedule but my digestive system is still on Eastern Daylight Time.

Domenica, 11 luglio

Arrivo We touched down at Leonardo da Vinci (nobody refers to it as anything but Fiumicino -like the Avenue of Americas in New York City -- and, more to the point, Leonardo had very little to do with Rome in his lifetime residing there only from 1513 to 1516 with no significant artistic commissions to brag about) about fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. Passport control was unfussy as we two innocuous old tourists do not appear to profile dangerously, our three pieces of luggage were present and accounted for, and customs control consisted of blithely but quite legally just strolling out the door to the waiting area. Don't ask, don't tell. Not that we had anything to say, or declare. We had arranged through the delightful Carla, the manager of the Palazzo Olivia, to be met by a limo driver who would be standing in this very waiting area with an expectant look on his face and a poster with my name in his hands. Along with seemingly 100 other similarly dressed fellows with similar signs (are women not permitted to drive limos in Rome?). Not to mention innumerable civilians and folks eagerly waiting for their returning or expatriated relatives. We had landed a tad early and circled the chaos several times looking for our driver (actually, looking for my name on a sheet of paper) while wondering how we would negotiate the trip if he stood us up. We had to fend off several illegal taxi drivers all of whom seemed more than enthusiastic about becoming our employers and very sincerely promising a safe and comfortable journey. It wasn't worth the unease; our fellow showed up and on time, spelling my name correctly. Whatever has happened to the Italians? The polite young man helped us with our baggage, told us to wait while he went to get the limo, and drove us into Rome.

78

The Palazzo Olivia Those of you not suffering from short-term memory loss will recall that Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements for municipal administrative and political purposes. In Rome these are called ―Rioni‖ and consist of 22 divisions, somewhat less formalised than those of Paris. The Palazzo Olivia, our home away from home in Rome, is in the ―Parione‖ (6 th Rione) which probably refers back to the large walls (―parietone‖ in mediaeval Italian) of the Stadium of Domitian whose vestigial shape can still be seen in the long oval of the marvellous Piazza Navona. It is in a group of rioni that cover an area known to ancient Romans as the Campius Martius, or Field of Mars. Before the birth of Rome, The Campius Martius was a low-lying plain limited by a bend of the River Tiber and by the Quirinal and the Capitoline hills. When Rome expanded the area was still outside the defending Servian walls; it was used some for pasturing horses and sheep, but mainly for military training activities for the Roman army. It was therefore appropriately dedicated to Mars, the Roman god of war. During the Augustan period the area became officially part of the city and was eventually contained within the Aurelian walls. The Campius Martius also held the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace), built by the Senate to mark the establishment of peace by Augustus. Marcus Agrippa had the swampy ground made into a pool and baths in a setting of parkland and temples, and built the Porticus Argonautarum, the Laconicum Sudatorium, the baths having his name, and the original Pantheon. After the great fire of the 80 AD, the Emperor Domitian rebuilt the burnt monuments in addition to the new stadium and an Odeon (a small building for music and other entertainments). Gradually, as the city of Rome exponentially grew at the end of the Republic and in the early Empire, more and more buildings were constructed on the Campius Martius. The Campius filled with temples and public buildings, circuses, theaters, porticoes, baths, monuments, columns and obelisks. As Barbarians invaded and the aqueducts were cut the population of Rome, at least the few that remained, moved away from the seven hills and towards the Tiber River, the only source of water. Since it was next to the river and adjacent to the Vatican, the Campius became the most populated part of Rome during the Middle Ages. Thanks to the flourishing economy around the River Tiber, they could simultaneously drink the 79

water of the streaming river and empty the pockets of the continuous stream of pilgrims headed for the Vatican (St Peter‘s was a required stop, along with the other major basilicas, for all pilgrims hoping to gain brownie points by visiting Rome, especially in Jubilee years). Because of the increasing significance of the area, several popes decided to improve its living conditions. Straighter and wider streets were constructed to connect the Campius to the rest of Rome and ease commerce, aqueducts were repaired to improve the quality of the water supply, and better housing was constructed for both the few wealthy and the many poor. After the Renaissance, like the rest of Rome, the Campius Martius did not much change as there were few new impressive public works and the population actually decreased. But when Rome became the capital of the newly founded Italy in 1870 the area became increasingly crowded and protecting embankments were built to stop the flooding of the River. The Via dei Leutari, upon which one finds the Palazzo Olivia, is a one block long narrow street (actually, more like an alley) bounded by the busy and hectic Corso Vittorio Emmanuele and the quiet pedestrian street Via del Governo Vecchio. Leutari is best translated as Lutists and was probably named for the several musical workshops located there several hundred years ago. While hardly the centre of Roman culture the alley is not unknown to history. The house located at numbers 21 and 23 (the Olivia is #15) was the property of Cardinal Montalto who rose in his profession to become one of Rome's finest and most useful popes, Sixtus V (1585-90). One of Raphael's favourite mistresses, Maria Bibbiena, died in the Palazzo da Bibbiena which was much later demolished when the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele was widened in the 1880s. Across the alley from the Olivia, at #35 (Roman street numbers surely must follow a logic of some sort, but it appears to be a state secret) is the house where Gioachino Rossini composed his most popular opera, The Barber of Seville.

80

The Palazzo (seems like an ambitious title for the modest building. A palazzo generally refers to a grand residence of some significance built within the city -those built outside were referred to as Villas) Olivia is a recently renovated 17th century edifice which now contains seven shortterm rental apartments for vacationers and a penthouse apartment for the owners. The apartments are all named for characters in Rossini's opera: Berta, Fiorello, Almaviva, Bartolo, Rosina, Figaro and our unit, the Basilio. Don Basilio is an impoverished music teacher and the major bass voice in the cast. Each of the four floors above the entrance and below the penthouse contains two apartments (an eighth apartment, to be called Barbiere, will shortly be added), one each of one bedroom and two bedrooms. Our Basilio is adjacent to the two-bedroom Bartolo on the

third floor. Europeans do not count the ground floor the first as North Americans do. Coming off the elevator (only a fool would use the endless and dangerously narrow stairs) you walk straight to an enormous 17th century door which we never closed with a majestic series of confusing locks which we never locked and find two more vintage entrances. We are on the left and this door we both opened and locked.

81

You enter and turn left. The washroom is equipped with a toilet, a pedestal sink, a walkin shower, a hot water heater, and a bidet which Europeans seem to find useful. Further down the hallway is the dining/sitting area with a sofa/sleeper, a table with three chairs, a flatscreen TV with hundreds of channels, almost all of them useless to us, and a kitchenette consisting of two electric burners, a full-sized refrigerator, a microwave, and a sink, as well as enough plates, glasses, and silverware to feed eight. Continuing down the hallway is a large bedroom with a bed sized somewhere in between Queen and King, another sofa/sleeper, a closet, a desk and chair, and a chest of drawers. If you are the sort that requires moving pictures instead of words go to: http://www.palazzo-olivia.it/en/apartments-rome/basilio-rome-apartment.php and enjoy a 46 second YouTube tour of the joint. Apartments have several advantages over hotels: more room (suites in hotels are ruinously expensive), a separation between sitting and sleeping areas, a kitchenette capable of cooking meals (for us, and probably for you, that means only breakfast), and storing cold things to drink and snacks for when you come back exhausted from touring, a more accurate sense of living in the city, and the freedom to afternoon siesta without being interrupted by a housekeeper. The disadvantages include missing out on the elaborate buffets put out even by many two and three-star hotels -- this didn't concern us because we didn't want to necessarily eat when it was set out and of course we didn't really want a large breakfast, saving our appetites for pasta and pizza. We were looking forward to cappuccini and cornetti (the Roman version of the croissant) in people-watching-capable piazzas each morning. And unlike our apartment in Paris there was no washer/dryer available (in hotels there is a convenient albeit way overpriced laundry service) so Randi had to wash things out in the bathroom as the July weather required multiple showers and multiple clothing changes. What some may find disadvantageous we did not: we made our own beds every day, suffered having only one full cleaning, and had to reuse towels for several days before they were changed. Like at home. The major concern in renting an apartment as opposed to a hotel room is dealing with things that might go wrong. The apartment could be dirty. The refrigerator may not be equal to its responsibilities. And, horror of horrors, the air conditioning could go down. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of rental apartments available in Rome. The vast majority are managed for their owners by large companies and there are many examples in the literature of non-responsive or invisible managers who wash their hands of the situation after they receive the full payment they demand upon arrival. At the Palazzo Olivia this concern was much alleviated by the daily presence of the building manager, Carla Benedetti, with whom we communicated from first expression of 82

interest through departure. Besides orienting us to the immediate neighbourhood (where were the best supermarket, gelateria, and Panini shop within a five-minute walk), how to manage the television, kitchenette, and air conditioning, and answering any questions we might have about sites, taxi stands and airport limos, she was physically present every day should anything go wrong. She is a knowledgeable, capable, and charming woman who, if we had required her, surely would have resolved any problems in the apartment. There are two consumer travel review sites that I most trust as there are some that are little more than masked advertisements written by the owners: Trip Advisor and Slow Travel. While there probably are some sneaky reviews and some stupid reviews, on the whole they appear honest and sincere and contain both good and bad in various proportion to the quality of the residence. The Olivia received consistently excellent reviews on both sites http://www.tripadvisor.com/Search?q=Palazzo+Olivia%2C+Rome&subsearch=Search&geo=&where=nav&returnTo=__2F__ http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/vr/list.asp?r=Rome and I have since added my own honest and sincere glowing comments (Canadian67 on tripadvisor, SG on slow travel).

Dr Gaber's Cure for Jetlag, Rheumatism, and Phlegm Some of you may remember my patented cure for jetlag: take a walk after arrival for an hour or so, go back to the apartment and sleep for a few hours, then take another walk and go for dinner, and finally go to sleep for the night. It has never failed before and didn't fall short this time. After I paid Carla the balance of our apartment rental fee, Randi and I went to call on a few old friends. Idiotically for such experienced flyers we had eaten the awful pizza snack offered us by the miserable chefs of Air Canada about 90 minutes before touchdown. We knew but we did not act on the obvious fact that we could find better pizza in Rome than we could be served in flight. Well, the result of that was that we were not hungry at all just past 2 PM local time (8 PM standard stomach time).

83

We decided first to do a little shopping to stock the refrigerator with necessities such as cereal, milk, yoghurt, and wine. Following Carla's directions we turned left at our front door and left again on the via Governo Vecchio. We passed a small Panini takeout place, a well-known pizzeria, Da Baffetto, and the gelateria she had also recommended to us. Gelato is available all over Rome but what you want to look for is a notice that they make their own on-site, which is trumpeted by a sign, ―Produzione Propia,‖ at the entrance. While we weren't hungry enough at this moment to enter we certainly took note of the location for when we would return, as we obviously would, repeatedly. We found the supermarket Carla recommended, Carrefour Express, at 119, Via Governo Vecchio. The entrance was tiny but when you walk down the narrow aisles we discovered twists and turns towards the larger and larger rear, including many deli-type counters with prepared food that, had we been hungry, would have driven us crazy. We later found out this was part of a large chain that has outlets all over Rome. We had brought with us a canvas shopping bag from Loblaw's, a Canadian chain, and brought back to the apartment the necessities described above. We still weren't very hungry so had some yoghurt and cereal to prevent any anticipated hunger pangs that might strike over the next few hours. Back outside into the heat: little did we know that the steamy 32° (90°F) would be the lowest reading of the entire visit. By the way, I have been closely following Roman temperatures (pretrip paranoia is not my only mental illness) since we returned and am not pleased to see that there has not been a high above 30° on any single day since we departed. It was constantly below 30° immediately before we arrived, continuously below 30° immediately after we left, and above 32° every day during our trip. There is probably some god responsible for this (Vulcan?) and we need to have some words about this sort of thing. We chose to visit three old friends on this brief, pre-nap ambulation. The first is the Piazza Navona, the finest square (actually, a rectangle or oval) in all of Rome. The 84

second is the Pantheon, the best preserved classical Roman building. The third is the statue in front of the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The Palazzo Olivia is so well located in the Centro Storico that none of these three masterworks were more than a 10 minute walk away from our home base. More about the Piazza Navona and the Pantheon later. Santa Maria sopra Minerva is Rome's only Gothic church and was built on the site of a Roman temple to the goddess Minerva (―sopra‖ is Italian for ―above‖) by Pompey the Great in 50 BC. Pope Zacharias constructed the first Catholic Church on the spot in 750 but nothing remains of that undertaking. The Dominican Friars were given the location by Pope Alexander IV and construction of the current edifice took place from 1280 to 1370. As are almost all churches it was closed in the mid afternoon so you will have to wait to find out more about why this is the only Gothic church in Rome when we return to it some days later. What we can discuss now is Bernini‘s lovable and entertaining statue found in front of Santa Maria. It is of a smiling elephant holding on its back a smallish obelisk and is one of everyone's favourite sites in Rome. In 1665 the Dominicans were digging in their monastery garden and like so many before and after they found, in a layer beneath the surface, a 5 1/2 m Egyptian obelisk that had been brought to Rome 1600 years previously and, like so much other buried treasure, had been lost and forgotten over the years. The sedimentary nature of Roman artifacts will be a constant theme throughout this tome The Rosetta Stone had not yet been unearthed in Egypt by Napoleon's invaders and hieroglyphics were not yet translatable but a clever, albeit dishonest, scholar told the Pope that it referred to the glorification of a ruler (such as Pope Alexander, perhaps?) and would reflect positively upon the Pope's reign and reputation. The base contains a Latin inscription which essentially says that "a strong mind is needed to support a solid knowledge."

85

Pope Alexander VII decided it would be displayed in front of the church as part of a statue that would be a symbol of knowledge. He asked Rome's leading architect and sculptor, Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), to develop a model that would meet the Pope's requirements. There is no animal stronger than an elephant and it was therefore a natural choice for the base of the obelisk. It has been said that the elephant design was inspired by the 15th century novel, Poliphil's Dream of the Love Battle, in which Polophil encountered an elephant made of stone carrying an obelisk. There is a woodcut illustration in the book which bears a striking similarity to Bernini‘s final design. Bernini's name will come up constantly during this tour and at some point will require a biographical chapter of his own as a necessary diversion.

86

The statue was completed and placed in front of the church in 1667. Romans initially referred to as ―Porcino‖ (piggy) because of its sturdy appearance and later as ―Pulcino‖ (chick) because of the size of the obelisk. It is the shortest of the 11 obelisks that remain in Rome. Randi and I had fallen in love with what we have always called "Minerva" during our first visit and have made a point of returning to say ―giorno‖ when we are in the vicinity. The trunk is out of proportion, much too long, and the toes are wrong (it is doubtful Bernini ever saw an elephant in life) but it has a very winning smile and it is impossible not to feel amusement when confronting it in the Piazza Santa Maria sopra Minerva. For those of you with some spare cash in the bank earning about one half of one percent interest, I have a scheme. Like all major tourist destinations Rome has countless tchotchkes available for visitors to take home and proudly place on their bookshelves. 87

You can find snow globes of St Peter's basilica, plastic models of the Colosseum in all dimensions short of life-sized, reprint etchings of Renaissance Rome, T-shirts (admission: I bought two), and almost any other type of crap imaginable at both large souvenir shops and small, portable stands all over Rome. Not to mention laid out on blankets for sale by African immigrants in front of any site worth mentioning. But in all of Rome there is no model of Bernini's elephant statue. Not one. Since the copyright has obviously expired I cannot account for this gap in Roman tchotchkedom. So here's what I propose: send me to Rome to negotiate a contract for various sizes in various media of ―Minerva.‖ It is a natural. It is a guaranteed moneymaker for those of you with imagination and courage. I stand ready to leave on short notice. The walk had accomplished what it was intended to and we were ready to return to the apartment to continue Dr Gaber's surefire

cure for jetlag. We turned on the air conditioning (the first thing we always did), closed the ancient shutters, and went to sleep without setting the alarm clock. Five hours later, at 8:30 p.m., we awoke likely due to increasing hunger pangs. Since Romans eat dinner fairly late (not as late as the Spanish, much later than Floridians) we were pretty much on time to find somewhere to eat. There were two excellent pizzerias within a five-minute walk of the apartment. Da Baffetto on the via Gov Vecchio is often 88

accused of having the finest pizza in Rome accompanied by perhaps the most sullen service imaginable. Since bad pizza in Rome is non-existent, I had little desire to deal with a waiter rushing me to finish and free up the table, and lines were rumoured to be interminable after 7 PM, we tried the other place. Absent a computer we couldn't look up the location of Pizzeria la Montecarlo but I recalled a YouTube video of directions there from the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele we turned right out of the apartment and right again for three blocks until we found it to our right on the Vicolo Savelli. There were no lines and we were fortunate enough to find the only free table available outside for late risers like us. Shortly after we sat down people began to line up on the street so our timing had been perfect. Ordering meals in Rome is not a complicated process. First, the liquids: ―Un mezzo litro vino rosso della casa e un litro acqua naturale.‖ Then, the first course (il primo, or l‘antipasto) in which we often split our favourite appetizer, an insalata caprese which consists of sliced tomatoes, sliced buffalo mozzarella, and fresh basil with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Followed by the second course (il secondo) which can be pasta, meat, fish, or in this instance, pizza. Pizzas in Rome are rather large, sometimes bigger than the plate, but have a very thin but strong crust with burn marks on the edge from the wood oven, and always arrive uncut. The Romans use a knife and fork to eat the pizza while tourists cut off a slice and eat it with their hands. We combine the methods; a knife and fork while it‘s hot and our hands when it cools off. It is expected that you will order one pizza per person which sounds like a lot but I, for one, have never left anything over and neither has anyone else ever. In this case I ordered a mushroom pizza (funghi) while Randi had a four cheese pizza (Quattro formaggio) and we had a half of each. Pizzas in Rome do not slosh on the tomato sauce or cheese but the ingredients are so fresh and tasty that the proportions worked out perfectly. The pizzas were superb.

89

Please note a small detail that will in a few days become more significant: we were given one glass each even though we had ordered both house wine and water. We expected the waiter to return with two more but we ended up having to call after him so that in this Catholic city with innumerable churches we would not be mixing wine and water or making wine from water. With plate sized pizzas in our bellies we required a walk before sleep. The logical destination was the Piazza Navona which is busy and active from dawn to dawn with diners, wanderers, art lovers, buskers, and folks who just love the Piazza Navona with its three wondrous fountains and Renaissance architecture. It requires a chapter of its own and that will follow next. Each restaurant in the Piazza Navona had televisions set up both inside and for the folks at the patio tables. This is not a common habit but it was the final of the World Cup soccer tournament and business would be slack indeed for any eatery that did not show the game. We found a good place to stand and saw, along with everyone else in the Piazza, or the continent for that matter, Spain defeat the Netherlands in overtime. As Italy had ignominiously been knocked out in the initial rounds enthusiasm was controlled. Back in the apartment we discovered that the flat screen TV had decent programming from the execrable Rupert Murdoch‘s Sky TV; enough stuff in English to help us fall sleep every night. We then completed the final phase of Dr Gaber's Cure and around midnight were back to sleep. No alarm clock was set.

Digression #1: Il Piazza Navona A few chapters ago I wrote of the area in which our apartment lay, the Campius Martius, which during the Roman Republic was essentially bare of public works, used mostly for military training and maneuvers. Around 60 BC that began to change with the construction of Pompey the Great‘s enormous theatre which he built where there was land sufficient for it, on the Campius Martius. Because of the flattish nature of the topography it was the first major construction project that was freestanding, rather than built into a hillside.

90

That was soon followed by Agrippa's original Pantheon, his completion of the Acqua Virgo aqueduct which provided water to the area and led to Agrippa's Thermae (baths), Augustus's Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) and nearby Mausoleum, and Augustus's enormous sundial (which used an Egyptian obelisk to cast its shadow) as well as other major construction endeavors. Soon enough the Campius was filled with vanity projects paid for by any Emperor with a yearn for self-aggrandizement. Shortly before 90 A.D. the Emperor Domitian (ruled 81-96) was in the process of rebuilding Rome following the disastrous fires of 79. While the enormous Circus Maximus below the Palatine was available for major chariot races Domitian felt it necessary to build a smaller venue to welcome the Greek athletic games and to use for musical and equestrian events. The stadium, named Circus Agonalis, was 250 m long and 106 m wide and could hold 25,00030,000 spectators, all of whom had a clear view of the action. The games were called ―agoni‖ which was later corrupted to ―in agona‖ and finally to ―navona.‖ In the mid-fourth century it was stripped of its marble coating and by the fifth century was in ruins, like most of the Campius Martius additions (except for the Pantheon which was converted into a Catholic Church and therefore preserved). But it retained its visible structure for another 1000 years until Pope Sixtus IV in 1477 chose it to be the site of a public market which he no longer wanted to have at the base of the Capitoline Hill. Popes, who were responsible for most of the building in post-Empire Rome, were also responsible for most of the destruction of Roman Empire buildings and artifacts. Pope Pius IV carted away the remnants of the stadium to use as materials for his Villa in the Vatican. They were early and serious practitioners of recycling. This new makeshift Piazza flourished and by the end of the century the stadium‘s seats had been entirely recycled, its remains covered over by taverns and shops. When that other great builder and destroyer, Mussolini, widened the Corso Renascimento (which runs parallel to the Piazza Navona) in 1930 the demolition of several buildings led to the excavation of the original northern entrance to the stadium which is still available to be seen today in its ruined state.

91

Rescued from ruin and transformed by its new commercial use the Piazza remained strictly utilitarian and not terribly attractive until 1644 when Cardinal Giambattista Pamphilj was elected Pope innocent X. His family already possessed a modest Palazzo on the west side of the square (which now houses the Brazilian embassy) and the Pope set out to improve the property by first expanding the family residence, building over several small streets in the process. He then undertook the addition of a new fountain to crown the area directly in front of the modest family church, St. Agnes in Agone (more of which in later chapters). With the market removed the Piazza Navona became home to various festivals which might include jousting, horse racing, and water festivals. During August, the hottest month of the year, the Piazza was flooded and Rome's aristocracy had their gilded carriages pulled around the artificial pond. It was now a well loved and well used public Piazza, one of the great public spaces of Rome. Little has been altered over the past 400 years as all major construction of the surrounding buildings and fountains were completed by 1700. A view from the air clearly shows the ancestry of the Piazza Navona as an athletic stadium:

92

There are three fountains that grace the Piazza Navona, two completed around 1575 and the middle one in 1651. They are Del Moro, Neptune, and Quattro Fiume (Four Rivers). During the last half of the 16th century waters from Agrippa's restored Acqua Vergine aqueduct (whose waters enter Rome at the Trevi Fountain) were piped into the Piazza providing sufficient water pressure for the construction of large fountains. Jacopo della Porta constructed the fountains at each end (Moro, Neptune) around 1575. 93

The Fontana del Moro featured the statues of Tritons, mythological gods who served as messengers of the sea. As an aside, the original Tritons are now to be found relaxing in Rome's public park, the Villa Borghese, peeking out of fields of flowers while the copies find themselves continually toiling as water messengers. In 1654 Bernini was commissioned to improve the fountain by adding a larger central figure, Il Moro, socalled because of his allegedly African facial features. There is also some evidence that

Bernini modeled the figure on himself. Il Moro seems to be wrestling a huge fish. At the other end of the Piazza is the Fontana del Nettuno whose figures were not added until the 19th century although the water had already been flowing into its basin for 300 years. Neptune is in the act of spearing a gigantic octopus which has wound its tentacles around his thighs. There are also two infant Tritons, a couple of seahorses, a satyr, and a pair of mermaids.

94

These two fountains are breathtaking but yet are clearly outshone by the main attraction and perhaps, next to the Trevi, the best-known and beloved fountain in all of Rome, the Fountain of Four Rivers. When Pope Innocent X took office Bernini was the most prominent, most respected, and most accomplished sculptor in Rome and had been the favoured protégé of Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644), Maffeo Barberini. The Pope was once heard to say to the sculptor that ―It is your great fortune to see Cardinal Maffeo Barberini Pope, but our fortune is far greater in that Cavalier Bernini lives during our pontificate.‖ Innocent, merely because of the intimate relationship between the Barberini Pope and Bernini, did his best to pull him down off of his sculpted pedestal. When he sent out a request for proposals for the fountain that would serve as the keystone to the entire Piazza he consciously excluded Bernini from the competition. Fortunately for Bernini the Pope's sister-in-law, Olimpia Maidalchini, was also opportunely and simultaneously his mistress and exerted a great deal of influence over the Pamphilj Pope. She arranged for a silver model of a proposed fountain to be created by Bernini and placed, anonymously, in the competition. Pope Innocent was clever 95

enough to both recognise Bernini's masterful touch and to overcome his prejudice and awarded him the contract. The Pope was determined, because of its location directly in front of his family church and in his family square, that the central fountain would boast an obelisk to dramatise its execution. He transported a broken obelisk from the Via Appia to his square and had it repaired. Thus the starting point of Bernini's design was necessarily a 54 foot shaft of granite. When he came up with was an elaborate collection of marble figures: rocks, four enormous figures to represent four of the Earth's most significant rivers (Ganges, Plata, Danube, Nile) from four different continents, a lion, a horse, an absurd armadillo (just as Bernini had but a flawed notion of an elephant in his ―Minerva‖ his armadillo here is almost unrecognisable as such), and other additions which have been assembled as if by magic into a sophisticated composition of the utmost harmony. It concentrates interest upon the formerly derelict centre of the Piazza without, at the same time, destroying the harmony of the whole or monopolising all interest.

Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of Bernini's design was to place the obelisk upon the base in such a way that there was an illusion of weightlessness, that the obelisk was posed on an open arch as if its tons of granite were mere plywood. It seemed to be supported by thin air. It is said that Bernini, hearing that his critics were complaining that the

96

obelisk was not secure and might fall, showed up one day and attached thin strings to it tying them to the nearby buildings, and departed with a mischievous grin. As a final note, atop the obelisk is not the usual Saint or cross but rather a dove, which coincidentally happens to be the symbol of the Pamphilj family. When the three of us first came to Rome in 1992 we were staying in a small albergo across the Tiber near the Tomb of Hadrian. We had to cross a bridge every day in order to visit most of the sites but we always managed to find an excuse to walk through the Piazza Navona and soon found it to be "our" Piazza. We still have a caricature of Zachary which was drawn in the Piazza by one of its many busker/artists. This time our apartment was but a five minute stroll away and there was not a morning or evening in which we did not make the time to visit the Piazza Navona and spend at least a half hour enjoying its many pleasures.

Lunedì, 12 luglio

The First Morning: One Church Scaffolded, Two Shuttered Despite our lengthy nap of the afternoon before we slept all the way until 8 AM this morning. Fortunately, we had no early obligations and had no need to rush around to get out. We had our breakfasts perhaps not leisurely but certainly not frenetically. Our first goal of the morning was frustrated. I had researched coffee places (referred to as "bars" in Italy) and the most atmospheric in the neighbourhood seem to be the Café della Pace. It is not quite as well-known as the Big Two of the Piazza Navona/Pantheon area (Sant'Eustachio Cafè, Tazza d‘Oro) but was in a more pleasant location, one of the finest squares in Rome, the Piazza della Pace, and had a very nice patio. But no chairs were tables were to be seen outside and it looked to be closed. So we headed towards the Piazza Navona to seek somewhere to sip in front of Bernini's great Fountain of the Four Rivers.

97

Ordering coffee in Rome is not terribly different from the process in Paris. You sit at an empty table anywhere and, albeit without the speed or efficiency of Parisian servers, someone will amble by and wait for your order. One major difference is that Roman locals tend to drink inside, standing up, and in something of a hurry. The indoor system is to tell the cashier what you will be ordering and pay for it, then give the receipt to the fellow behind the counter who will fill the order. Prices are about one half of that on the patio which seems to be the determining factor. In Paris tourists are better integrated with locals on the patio, where everyone sits. As in Paris, I quickly memorised the required phrases, ―Bon giorno, signore. Due cappuccini e due cornetti semplice.‖ A cornetto (plural = cornetti) is the Italian equivalent of the French croissant but you're more likely to find it filled with cream or chocolate than in Paris and it requires the addition of ―semplice‖ to assure it is plain. Italians take their coffee more seriously than Parisians or any other folk we have yet encountered. And there are many types of coffee available for order. If you simply ask for a "caffè" you can expect to receive a small cup containing one shot of espresso, which is the default choice of Italians in the morning, and the afternoon and evening for that matter. An "Americano" is a shot of espresso to which about 7 ounces of hot water is added to, I guess, water it down and is as close to a North American cuppa as you will find. A ―latte‖ is simply a glass of milk but a ―caffè latte‖ is a single shot of espresso in steamed milk, at a ratio of approximately 1:3. A "macchiato" has somewhat less steamed milk (1:5) as the coffee is only "stained" with milk. A ―granita‖ is a shot of espresso added to shaved ice usually accompanied by sugar. There are others, of course. It is an arcane discipline. And then there is the famous "cappuccino" so-named because it is approximately the colour of the brown hoods worn by Capuchin monks. Cappuccino is a mixture of espresso, a little steamed milk and, unlike the macchiato or latte, also some milk foam. A firm and absolute rule, perhaps acknowledged in the Constitution for all I know, is that one never orders a cappuccino after 10:30 in the morning, certainly never at dinner when only espresso, straight, is acceptable. You can do it, but you shouldn't.

98

At any rate with the Café della Pace oversleeping we had a choice of several in the Piazza Navona. The Ristorante/Pizzeria Tucci was located closest to the fountain and had pretty green and white tablecloths so that was our choice for our first morning‘s coffee ritual. It is very unlikely (but not, as we will see, totally impossible) that we would ever dine on the Piazza Navona for lunch or dinner because the food tends to be overpriced and does not always contain the freshest ingredients. Several of the restaurants on the Piazza brag that "our food is never frozen" but that is as trustworthy as those promises of "air conditioning" inside that contain only ceiling fans, sometimes accompanied by water sprays. But for morning coffee it was well worth the extra cost for an excellent cappuccino and cornetto served with a nice glass of water. And we got to gape at both St Agnese and the Quattro Fiume, priceless additions to the breakfast experience. First up this morning was a quick visit with Rome's best-known and oldest "talking statue," Pasquino. In 1501 a weathered and rundown torso of King Menelaus was placed in a small Piazza near the Navona by Cardinal Carafa. It began with an annual literary competition sponsored by the Cardinal in which poems were posted on the statue. Unsubstantiated history tells us that a nearby tailor (or sometimes a barber, other times the schoolmaster) named Pasquino began to glue bits of Vatican gossip or satiric commentary onto the statue during the night when the Pope's censors were less likely to be around. It became a local pastime to stop by the statue in the morning to see what it had to say and it soon became known as "the talking statue." Soon enough other ancient, worn statues around town began to join the conversation and there would be fascinating dialogues among Pasquino, Marforio, Madame Lucrezia, Abbot Luigi, Il Babuino (the baboon), and Il Facchino (the porter). The papacy and Rome's administrators found themselves unable to confiscate the satire as quickly as it could be replaced.

99

To this day one can still find what are eponymously called ―pasquinades‖ taped to these statues. A pasquinade is defined as "a satire or lampoon, originally displayed publicly." Perhaps the best-known comes from the 17th century and was posted in Latin: "Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini" which translates to "What the Barbarians didn't do, the Barberini's did." This referred to Pope Urban VIII, from the Barberini family, who was known to strip ancient monuments of their marble or bronze in order to lower the costs of his own vanity projects. For example, when Bernini required a great deal of bronze to create his baldacchino for St Peters (which contains many portraits of bees, the Barberini family symbol) the Pope suggested he take it from the ceiling of the Parthenon's portico. Fortunately for the critic, and like the best pasquinades, the submission was anonymous. We then walked five or six blocks westward to the first church of the many we would visit, Santa Maria in Valicelli, which is much better known as the New Church, or Chiesa Nuova. The "old" Santa Maria in the Little Valley was built by Pope Gregory the Great (ruled 590-604). By the 16th century bogs and roots had worn away the foundations and its administrator, St. Phillip Neri (1515-1595), convinced Pope Gregory XIII to pay for a replacement in return for its being dedicated to him. Construction began in 1575 and it was completed in 1599, directed by della Porta and Longhi the Elder. The 17th century facade is modeled upon, as are so many others from this time, the Jesuit church Il Gesu (described somewhat later), and is the work of Fausto Rughesi. It is probably very nice but we couldn't see it because of the extensive scaffolding which one sees so much of in Rome. Fortunately, we were here primarily to see the adjacent Oratorio di Fillipo Neri which was intended to serve as a monastery for the Oratorians, a religious order whose members continued their career in a secular world, thereby having their cake and eating it too. It was in this building that St Philip Neri organised the first sacred performances of music for soloists and choir in a form that was to be called during the baroque an Oratorio. The Oratorian Brothers continue to house their monastery in this edifice which also contains such miscellany as the first public library of Rome, the Capitoline Historical Archives, and the Roman Newspaper Archives which contain copies of all Roman newspapers published over the past 300 years.

100

Bernini's great rival Borromini designed the Oratory‘s facade but with more constraint than usual with plain brick and plain pilasters and little decorative competition for the Chiesa Nuova next door. We were not here for the facade, or even a history, so much as for the over the top interior which answered Il Gesu‘s riot of marble with its own riot of gilded stucco. No pilaster without its gilded capital, no painting without its gilded frame, no vault without its gilded coffering. The onslaught of gold design is unrelenting but, for these visitors, nothing succeeds like excess.

101

If you can look

between the shiny gildings you will see some marvellous paintings by Pietro da Cortona (the ceilings, including the dome vault above), Frederico Barocci, a copy of a Caravaggio, and three works by Peter Paul Rubens surrounding the high altar. Outside in the shimmering heat to which we had not yet become acclimated stands what might be the homeliest and least graceful fountain in all of Rome, the lovable La Terrina (the Tureen), sunk into the pavement. It is the only covered fountain in Rome but nobody knows who added, or why they added, the travertine lid. It was originally placed in the Campo dei Fiori, uncovered, a delicate marble basin oval in shape with four bronze dolphins within. In 1889 a statue of Giordano Bruno was placed by anticlerical factions in the centre of the Campo dei Fiore to honour the Dominican philosopher who was burnt at the stake for heresy there in 1600. To place it in the right spot the fountain had to be dug up and 102

removed and it then promptly disappeared from history for 35 years until it quietly found its way to the front of the Chiesa Nuova where it has gained a cover and a permanent location. The dolphins may still be under the lid but I doubt it. On our way to the next stop on the itinerary we passed by the lovely Via dei Coronari which is known for its antique shops and its practice of placing plants in every doorway and lighting candles in front of every store at night. Originally named Via Recta, this street was created by a radical redesign of this medieval quarter by Pope Sixtus IV. The idea was to create a through road to Ponte Sant'Angelo and then further on, to St. Peter's. Because the road was subsequently thronged with pilgrims, it was lined with stands and shops selling sacred souvenirs and rosary beads. These rosary beads used to be called crowns of beads and hence the name of the street became Via dei Coronari. The fascinating medieval feel is still alive today, though the old souvenir shops have given way to secular antique and craft boutiques. We then returned to the Piazza Navona but found St. Agnese once again shuttered so moved on to Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza. You may remember that the Corso Rinascimento is one block away and parallel to the Piazza Navona. Anyone who wanders up the Corso eventually passes by the Palazzo della Sapienza, once home to the University of Rome (La Sapienza). Nothing much special here, move along, unless you peek into a rather plain doorway and see within (L): With its curved facade, bulging drum, stepped dome, and spiral lantern, Borromini's little church is like no other in Rome and possesses a visual impact far beyond its size. Borromini was the baroque era's preeminent iconoclast, famous for ignoring Classical conventions and breaking Classical rules. But the exterior of St. Ivo is not so much an exercise in unorthodox Classicism as an essay in contrast in curves. From the concave arc of the entrance wall up through the convex billowings of the dome to the tall circular lantern there is barely a flat surface or right angle in sight.

103

When Randi and I were in a place where we had a decent overall view of Rome we could see many domes and many lanterns, a few of which we could actually distinguish and identify. But we could always pick out and always recognise the strange lantern which stood out among its more prosaic brethren and enabled us to get our bearings. It has been written the Borromini had in mind either the Tower of Babble or the Lighthouse at Alexandria as a model for his corkscrew lantern.

Of all the churches we intended to visit St. Ivo had the most meagre and least generous opening schedule, two hours on Sunday mornings, so we never actually got inside. However, this trek was rewarded by discovering that a concert was to be held the following night in the courtyard and that tickets were on sale at that very moment in that very place. It was an all-Mozart (better than Mostly Mozart) program which was wholly irresistible so we purchased a pair of tickets.

104

It was time to head for lunch and, as we needed to shop for more potables, we returned to our grocery store for juice, soda, wine, crackers, and beefsteak tomatoes. The system at Carrefour is to place your vegetable/fruit in a bag and carry them to a scale where you punch in their code number (found on the shelf next to the price) and weigh them, receiving a small printed receipt in return. This saves the overworked cashier from having to do so and speeds up the endless lines. Just another detail not documented in any guide but absolutely essential required knowledge for independent travellers. For lunch we purchased a couple of paninis at our local shop, La Paninoteca di Mimi e Coco on the via Gov Vecchio. Sadly, we cannot recall what we bought but I can assure you it contained fresh, bright red tomatoes, whatever else was present. Then… a siesta.

A Visit to the French Embassy This afternoon‘s nap was rudely interrupted by the tinny ping of our ancient, tiny RadioShack alarm clock. We had a four o'clock appointment at the French Embassy and could not be late.

105

We first crossed over the Corso Vittorio Emmanuale to the other major Piazza in our immediate neighbourhood, the Campo Dei Fiori, or Field of Flowers. It is a plainer,

noisier, more raucous companion to the Piazza Navona. Depending on the time of day it is either the major food market of the Campo Marzio or a trattoria-filled place for young people to eat, drink, party, and throw up. You may recall that the Campus Martius (Latin version of Field of Mars, Campo Marzio in Italian) was originally a rather vacant, boggy, flood-prone area west of the seven hills that was primarily used for military training but was later filled in by Republican and Imperial building projects such as Augustus's mausoleum and the Theatre of Pompey. Following the fall of Rome and the destruction of the aqueducts by its invaders the Campo began to fill in with those Romans remaining the city who needed to be near the only available source of water, the Tiber. The destruction of Pompey's Theatre left an empty field of flowers which soon enough was built up into one of mediaeval Rome's most lively squares through which the Via dei 106

Pellegrino (Street of the Pilgrims) ran on its way to St Peters Basilica. Taverns, shops, and inns quickly sprung up to relieve the Pilgrims of some of their money before the Vatican could get the rest. By the Renaissance the Campo Dei Fiori had evolved into, along with the Piazza Navona, the principal market square of the Campo Marzio with the added pleasures of serving as the primary gallows of the time, with the installation of a permanent gibbet. You could shop, buy a horse, eat, and watch an execution all in one place. Very convenient. In the centre of the Campo is a statue of the freethinking philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician Giordano Bruno placed there in 1889 to memorialise those who were executed here for a heretical ―crimes‖ against the church, as he was in 1600. When Pope Innocent X, in the 17th century, decided to make the Piazza Navona his family's front yard he closed its market leaving the Campo Dei Fiori as the sole market square of the area, a function which it retains today. When the shopkeepers take down their stands and umbrellas the sanitation folk crawl all over the Campo collecting the vegetables, fruit, and garbage that remain on the ground in order to prepare it for the transformation to merrymaking central. The produce market of the days and the partying of the evenings continually fill the square to overflowing. Its great virtue is its ordinariness, and the message of its daily rituals is both reassuring and exhilarating. It is Rome's most hard-working Piazza: unpretentious, industrious, highly productive, and irreplaceable. There does not exist an Italian saying, ―Una chiesa per ogni Piazza, un Piazza per ogni chiesa,‖ (a church to 107

every Piazza, a Piazza for every church), but there ought to. Every square in Rome possesses a church of more or less grandeur. Except for the Campo Dei Fiori which, in keeping with its nocturnal debauchery, is churchless. But, like so many of Rome's squares, the Campo does possess a fountain. In the last chapter we saw that its fountain, La Terrina, was removed in order to locate Bruno‘s statue in the centre of the square and was later placed in front of the Chiesa Nuova. To compensate the Campo for its loss in 1898 a copy of the terrine, without the lid and above a granite basin, was built at its Western end. It is neither Rome's most striking nor most impressive fountain but is, like its surrounding Piazza, unpretentious and useful. Since 1874 the Palazzo Farnese has been the home of the French Embassy. In 1911 the two countries entered an agreement whereby France was given a 99 year lease on the Palazzo for a nominal payment in return for the Italians renting a lovely little place in Paris for their Embassy for an equally symbolic payment. Because it is a working Embassy it is not open to the public for visiting; anyone who wants to peek inside must do so through its upper windows from the Piazza Farnese after nightfall. Once a year the French open up the building to the public for visits. However, due to the demand they have recently allowed ordinary folk to visit at either 4 or 5 PM on Mondays and Thursdays. In order to get inside this working Embassy I had to write them several months in advance and give them identifying information such as our passport numbers and birthplaces and to bring these documents with us at the appointed time. These tours are in either French or Italian; as I am fluent in neither it mattered not which language would constitute a particular tour. The point was to get inside the Palazzo, have a look around, and this is the only way it can be done. We were a few minutes early and had some time to view the enormous Piazza Farnese. It is a typical Italian Piazza in that it possesses a church and fountains and has no trees or any other greenery and was, until a few decades ago, used (as so many piazzas were and some, sadly, still are) as a car park. It is atypical because there are two fountains and there are semi-comfortable places to sit along the Palazzo. It is also quite large, much larger than any other Piazza in Rome except for the Piazza San Pietro in the Vatican.

108

The stately twin fountains of the Piazza Farnese are recycled Roman bath tubs of grey granite which were liberated from the Baths of Caracalla. The bath tubs were taken by Pope Paul II in 1466 for his new Piazza Venezia (Paul II was from Venice). At first they were simply decorative relics of the classical past and not adapted as fountains. And there they stayed for 68 years until Pope Paul III (at the time simply Cardinal Alessandro Farnese) removed them to ornament his new Palazzo Farnese. Initially the supply of water from the Acqua Vergine was inadequate to service the fountains but in 1627 the Acqua Paola was completed to provide water to the Piazza and the granite bathtubs were mounted in decorative pieces of marble and in each was placed in a exquisite urn terminating in a Farnese lily (bees for Barberinis, doves for Pamphilis, lilies for Farneses). Jets of water bubble over into the urn and drip into the bath below. The centrepieces, the work of Girolamo Rainaldi, are among the most elegant fountain decorations in Rome.

109

I have heard that the Palazzo Farnese, one of the most influential edifices of the Renaissance, described as the eight hundred pound gorilla of Roman palazzi. Straightforward in style and massive in scale it commands immediate attention if not always immediate respect. Monolithic, it is both an irresistible force and an immovable object; no wonder Palazzo in Rome possesses such presence and power. When it was constructed for Pope Paul III it caused a sensation, and for centuries to come it set the standard of grandeur against which all other Roman palazzi were judged.

Antonio da Sangallo the Younger was the main architect and opted for a no-nonsense formation of windows resting on horizontal cornice-like ledgers running the entire length of the facade. Compared to this decorous arrangement of windows, the lavishly carved and emphatic roof cornice may come as a jolt because the Pope was unimpressed with Sangallo‘s design for the Palazzo's crowning element. He checked around and found another architect, one Michelangelo, available to provide a new and heavier cornice. In

110

order to reduce the sense of heaviness of the cornice Michelangelo inserted extra wall space between the upper row of windows and the cornice. Work began under Sangallo in 1514 and continued, at his death, by Michelangelo in 1546. It has been said that much of the stonework of the facade was stolen from the Colosseum but in truth was actually liberated from the baths of Caracalla and Diocletian. We were greeted at the gate, only five minutes late, by a lovely young employee of the Embassy whose name escapes me. She took us into the courtyard and droned on some in Italian (better for us than in French -- I can at least pick out some words and phrases every now and then in Italian) and then took us upstairs and through the gardens in back. I couldn't care less if she were speaking Swahili or Cantonese; she was as cute as a button and had a lovely smile. I was briefly in love. The interior of the Palazzo Farnese was, as expected, as lovely a sight as a Cardinal‘s fabulous wealth could purchase. By far the most impressive room was the Galleria Carracci, so-called because the magnificent vault of the piano nobile (the second floor of palazzi are referred to as Piano Nobile and are usually much grander and larger than what is above and below) was painted by one of the masters of the Italian Renaissance, Annibale Carracci (1560-1609). His chosen the theme was "human love governed by celestial love" and it is riotously rich in illusionistic elements. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, 111

this Farnese Ceiling was considered the unrivaled masterpiece of fresco painting for its age. They were not only seen as a pattern book of heroic figure design, but also as a model of technical procedure; Carracci‘s hundreds of preparatory drawings for the ceiling became a fundamental step in composing any ambitious history painting. He admitted to being heavily influenced by Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling which is not really a bad way to operate. The backyard gardens were the final stop of the one-hour tour (except, of course, for the usual ―shortcut‖ through the small and useless bookstore). As expected the gardens were beautifully landscaped and surrounded by high, ivy-covered walls. It would have been nice to have been invited to a cocktail party in the gardens but that was not part of the tour.

Across the Tiber The tour of the French Embassy was over and as our guide obviously forgot to give me her telephone number there was nothing to do except to leave and head for the river. The Palazzo Farnese is one road away from the Tiber and that one street is the Via Giulia, one of the loveliest in all of Rome. It was constructed by Pope Julius II, who modestly named it after himself, to serve as a straight shot to the Vatican. He appointed his favourite architect Donato Bramante (1444-1514) to do whatever had to be done and his demolishing of whatever was in his way led to his nickname, ―Master Ruinante.‖ Julius's ambitious plans intended for the street to connect at both ends with bridges crossing the Tiber and would contain a huge Palazzo near the north end that would serve as a new centre for both ecclesiastical and civic government. The bridge at the street‘s northern end was never completed by his successors. The Palazzo too was never constructed although a few of its gigantic travertine blocks still survive and can be seen sticking out into the street (there are called by locals "street sofas"). 112

The Via Giulia specialises in unfinished projects and by far the most dramatic is the bridge that was intended to connect the Palazzo Farnese with the Villa Farnesina directly across the Tiber. A Palazzo is a city residence for a wealthy family and a Villa is a country (i.e., outside the city walls) home for a wealthy family and the Farnese‘s, having a Pope to make their family very wealthy indeed, thought it would be genteel to walk from one to the other on a private, raised walkway. Bramante, being dead, was unavailable so they were stuck with Michelangelo to complete the project. A walk along the Via Giulia takes you underneath the only part of the bridge that was ever completed, a short "bridge to nowhere" that is attached to the walls of the Palazzo Farnese but does not cross the Tiber. The Farnese family had to cross elsewhere, like everyone else, even those who did not have the good fortune to have a Pope in the family. Absent the northern bridge and the Farnese-Farnesina bridge and the courthouse, the Via Giulia does contain an interesting item that was completed. This is the combined wall fountain and horse trough that has found its home here since 1626. Il Mascherone (The Big Mask) takes the form of a colossal marble face of Roman date which has been converted into a fountain by cutting away its mouth from which water now descends in a steady stream. This has had the effect, together with the staring eyes, of giving the face a surprised expression. It was erected by the Farnese family and, like the fountains in the Piazza Farnese, had to wait for water from the Acqua Paola to be piped across the Ponte Sisto and this same water from that same aqueduct still flows from its big mouth. Absent Michelangelo's bridge we crossed 113

the Tiber on the Ponte Sisto, one of the few pedestrian bridges in town. It is the only bridge that was built across the Tiber from the time of the Roman Empire until the 19th century. You can guess from its name that was planned and paid for by Pope Sixtus IV who was weary of having to go all the way to the Ponte Sant'Angelo in order to get to the Vatican. When he was elected Pope he commissioned the architect Baccio Pontelli to build the new bridge, conveniently authorising him to recycle (strip) the material needed from the Colosseum. Pontelli took what little remained of the bridge that Agrippa had built from the Campus Martius to Trastevere in the 1st century BC and incorporated it into his new bridge. The Ponte Sisto was inaugurated in the Holy Year of 1475 so that pilgrims could get to the Vatican more rapidly in order to more quickly spend all their money there. Aside: a Holy Year is a papal innovation to increase the number of pilgrims choosing Rome as their destination to better assure their ascendancy to heaven. They based this marketing tool on the biblical concept of a "Jubilee" which was a special year of remission of sins and universal pardon, freeing of slaves and so on. The papacy caught on to this scheme under Pope Boniface VIII when he invoked 1300 (nice, neat number) as the first holy year with the intention to repeat the process every 50 years. As the pilgrims and the resulting revenues flooded in it became easy to adjust holy years to every 25 years. It took just a papal proclamation to double the income opportunities. It was required of pilgrims to visit Rome‘s major Catholic basilicas and to perform whatever tasks as were necessary (predominately contributions) to gain forgiveness and eternal life. This twaddle continues: as recently as 2008 a holy year was chosen by the current Pope who termed it "the Pauline Year." Randi and I keep careful track of holy years because that is definitely not a suitable time for us to visit Rome. It gets very crowded, more so than at any other time except when a new Pope is elected.

114

As we cross the Ponte Sisto into Trastevere the first thing we see on the other side is the Fountain of the Ponte Sisto. Just as marble and travertine and bronze move easily around Rome from ancient monument to Renaissance Palazzo depending upon who in power wants to save a few lira on building materials, so have some fountains migrated around the city over time. We have seen how La Terrina was dug up at the Campo Dei Fiori and later relocated at the Chiesa Nuova. We have seen how the original Tritons of the Piazza Navona now spend their time sunning themselves in the Villa Borghese. The most distinguished of these migratory fountains is the Fontana della Ponte Sisto, which once stood at the opposite end of the bridge. Pope Paul V had gone to the trouble and expense of constructing the aqueduct (named after himself of course) Acqua Paola to furnish water for Trastevere and wished to carry the water over the nearest bridge to the left bank of the Tiber, and to announce its arrival by a splendid fountain. In 1612 he charged the wonderfully-named Giovanni Fontana who had difficulty selecting a site. At that time the Tiber was not yet embanked and the Via Giulia ended at the bridge-head of the Ponte Sisto. At the shore was the hospice Ospizio dei Mendicanti which, as its name suggests, housed 2000 beggars. Fontana decided to incorporate the Pope's new fountain into the wall of the hospice in the form of a single classical archway in which water gushed out from the top, breaking its fall in a projecting bowl, and then streaming down like a waterfall into the main basin. Knowing who he worked for Fontana also included two Borghese dragons (griffins?) at each side of the fountain which sprouted water sideways towards each other. 115

It quickly became one of Rome's most admired fountains but became endangered when, in the 19th century, plans were developed to embank the river endangering all shoreline edifices, which were condemned to demolition. Protests sprang up to protect the fountain and to deplore its destruction as "an outrage to art and history." Remaining in its position was impossible and in 1879 it was pulled down and vanished from the Roman scene. Almost immediately lovers of the fountain agitated for its re-erection in another location and finally, in 1897, the municipality appointed an engineer, Rodolfo Bonflglietti, to rebuild it on the right bank of the bridge, in Trastevere. He began by tracking down the numerous places where the stones had been stored, taking a year of brilliant detective work to recover most of the fountain. It remained only to be rebuilt and, now that it was freestanding rather than attached to the facade of the hospice, required elevation up on a platform approached by a shallow flight of steps. It is an improvement upon the original with a dignity and importance which it never could have commanded when crowded onto the facade of a building. An example of Roman attention to detail: of course Pope Paul made sure to receive proper credit for its construction with an inscription above the fountain which stated that he had taken the water to the other side of the Tiber for use by that part of the city. Now that the fountain had crossed the river, the inscription was now meaningless. So a second inscription by a Professor at the University of Rome was added beneath the bowl, in the interior of the arch, using much smaller lettering and explaining the transfer. It can easily be read when the water is not flowing, which is approximately never.

Finally in Trastevere

116

We were walking much faster than I am writing but we finally entered the other Rome, the one not on the other side of the tracks but on the other side of the river. Trastevere literally means "beyond the Tiber" as Tiber, in Italian, is Tevere. Trastevere is the XIII rione (district, arrondissement etc) of Rome, and is on the west bank of the Tiber, south of the Vatican City. We had never before crossed the Tiber into Trastevere, only into the Vatican area to the north. We had originally planned to stay in Trastevere as the Hotel Santa Maria is located close to its heart, a block from the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. It would certainly put us in the middle of a Rome that looks nothing like the Centro Storico or the Forum area but is rather a series of narrow, winding streets made up of rather shoddy housing stock that is in the process, like the Marais of Paris, of rapid gentrification. Look for a picture of Trastevere in a book and you will likely see laundry hanging across the street between two tenement windows and, true to life, one of the first sights we saw directly we crossed the Ponte Sisto was just that. Like most of the area Trastevere was initially settled by Etruscans who were pushed out by Romans in the sixth century BC who needed to control both sides of the river. Because this was simply a strategic move the early Republicans did not build on that side of the river and the early city was connected to it only by a small wooden bridge. Gradually folks who worked on the river, sailors, and those of lower status such as Jews and Syrians found a home there that they could both afford and be made to feel welcome. When the Aurelian wall was constructed in the third century A.D. it included within its protective confines both Trastevere and the Vatican Hill. By then wealthy Romans such as Gaius Julius Caesar had built their villas on that side of the river where land was plentiful 117

and Augustus constructed his enormous floodable ―naumachia‖ in which to amuse the masses with mock naval battles. Although it was once believed that the Colosseum was flooded for these sorts of entertainments modern archaeology has proven that it would not have been possible. In the Middle Ages Trastevere had narrow, winding, and irregular streets; moreover, because of the so called ―mignani,‖ jutting foreparts on buildings' fronts, there was no space for carriages to pass. At the end of the 15th century these were removed, but, in spite of that, Trastevere remained a maze of narrow streets. Thanks to its partial isolation and to its multicultural environment the inhabitants of Trastevere, called trasteverini, were considered a unique culture: they were people of known tenaciousness, pride, and openness and spoke their own dialect of Italian. Our first stop was the ancient basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere which we found easily once we wound our way around seven narrow streets. Its Piazza, like so many others named after its chiesa, is the emotional centre of Trastevere and has been so for two thousand years. It is a large, not particularly attractive square centred by an impressive fountain and surrounded by the basilica, restaurants, and rundown buildings.

118

This fountain has a claim to be considered the oldest in Rome. This beautiful fountain, so often restored though never radically changed, still wears a mediaeval air and resembles more the Fonte Gaia in Siena than any other Roman fountain. An octagonal flight of six shallow steps of travertine leads to the platform upon which the octagon of the main basin stands. It is decorated and four of its angles with shell basins from which rise tall ribbed shapes, the work of the inevitable Carlo Fontana. No other fountain decoration in Rome resembles them. From the centre of the basin rises a pedestal carrying a circular bowl pierced beneath the rim by four wolves‘ heads. Also surrounding the fountain, perched on all eight sides and on all six levels are young folks waiting for the sun to set and the fun to begin. Neither the work of Carlo Fontana nor della Porta, these moving statues are as much a part of the permanent architecture of the fountain as any piece of sculpture. The story of the basilica goes back even further than that of the fountain. It was initially one of the ―tituli,‖ a parish church of the Roman Empire and is believed to be the location of the first open celebration of the Mass in Rome. Trastevere, you will recall, was the home of outcasts and few were more outcast in those preConstantinian days than Christians, and it would be unsurprising to find their first public Mass given in their own neighbourhood. It may have been first constructed in the third century and was the first church in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mother. The structure that exists today dates from a complete rebuilding that took place in the mid-12th century. The exterior mishmash reflects its many restorations: the campanile (bell tower) is original, the entrance portico is from the 18th century, and the mediaeval-looking upper facade dates from 1870.

119

On the facade only the mosaics are original and worth a closer look. The theme is generally taken to be "Virgin and Child Flanked by the Wise and Foolish Virgins" five of whom have wisely prepared their lamps ahead of time and five of whom have foolishly run out of oil. The church interior remains remarkably mediaeval in feel despite the 17th-century ceiling and the 19th-century decoration of the upper nave. Even the eponymous Cosmatesque floor is 19th century, although constructed of old materials arranged in patterns used by the Cosmati family in the 12th century. The most impressive part of the interior of Santa Maria are the mosaics in the apse. It is from the late 13th century, attributed to Pietro Cavellini, and depicts St Mary enthroned, flanked by saints and popes. On the left side are Pope innocent II, the builder of the church and in need of credit, St Lawrence, and Pope and St Callixtus, who was martyred nearby. On the right side are the apostle Peter, and combination popes and Saints Cornelius and Julius. You will also find the lamb of God, other apostles, various prophets, crosses, and Greek letters. It may sound hectic but the golden mosaics reflect the early evening sunlight into a soft, luminous glow.

120

We had one more Trastevere church to see before it would be time to sit down to dinner so we headed out in search of Santa Cecilia. Much easier said than done. Sure, we had our map and could easily find Santa Cecilia in Trastevere on it but, although we were in the vicinity, it eluded us for quite some time as we wandered around narrow streets with soaring walls and no street signs. In the Roman heat to which we were not yet accustomed we had to decide if we should go straight to go around the block or go left in order to get to where Santa Cecilia would admit us. Of course, we chose wrongly and had to go all the way around to get in. Santa Cecilia, so the story goes, was a virgin given in marriage to a youth named Valerian. She told the young man that her virginity was guarded by angels, a story that was unlikely to delight him. She said that an angel constantly watches over her, warding off anyone who

121

tried to touch her. He developed a plan to be baptised by Pope Urban so that the guardian angel could go off duty and thus allow him his husbandly pleasures but his hopes were dashed when he returned only to find an angel with flaming wings standing over his bride. Cecilia worked off any of her own frustrations by evangelising and preaching and converting over 400 Romans to Christianity. This led to her arrest and she was condemned to be suffocated in the baths. Although the fires of the caldarium were wellstoked she didn't break a sweat so an executioner was dispatched to cut off her head. He struck three times but couldn't sever her head as required. Feeling humiliated he slumped off, leaving her bleeding for three days. Crowds came to her and collected her blood with napkins and sponges whilst she preached to them or prayed. At the end of that interval she died, and was buried by Pope Urban and his deacons. She is the patron saint of music for the rather dubious reason that she heard heavenly music in her heart when she was married, although clearly duets with her husband were not in the cards. She is often represented in art with an organ (alas, not her husband's) in her hands. Believing that her house was sacred territory the first church dedicated to Santa Cecilia was built in the fourth century above the spot where her home had been located. That church was completely rebuilt by Pope Paschal I around 820, at the time her remains were discovered in the catacombs of San Callisto. She was transferred to her church where, in 1599, the tomb was opened and her body found to be as intact as if she had been interred the day before. The entrance portico and campanile were added in the 12th century and the entire church renovated in the 18th century. The church opens into a lovely courtyard with a large and ancient water vessel (not a fountain) in the centre. A mediaeval church courtyard is reminiscent of the Roman architectural style of allowing the worshipper to progressively enter the sacred arena from the secular. The interior is a mixed bag as very little of the mediaeval structure remains visible and the nave feels more like an 18thcentury ballroom than a ninth century church. Like so many other Roman renovations Santa Cecilia is a palimpsest church possessing layer upon layer of architectural features and decorative detail which never quite cohere, and the feel of a unified whole is lacking.

122

However there are two interior adornments that were well worth getting lost in Trastevere for. In the sanctuary around the high altar the architectural history of the church remains visible and combines to produce a memorable set piece. The ninth century mosaics of the curved rear wall serve as a backdrop for Arnolfo de Cambio‘s intricate Gothic baldacchino of 1293. This same baldacchino also crowns the niche below, which contains Stefano Maderno‘s early 17th century sculpture of Sta Cecilia's body. Maderno was said to be present when her tomb was opened and he was profoundly moved by the sight of her body lying on its side, wrapped in a robe of gold cloth, with the marks of the executioner's three axe chops still visible on her neck. He immediately determined to replicate this encounter in marble and a niche below the altar was specially constructed to display it. We were there in the early evening and at one point some church functionary came by to flip on a light switch and illuminate the sculpture, giving us a first-rate moment to experience it. Although the story of Santa Cecilia is pure hokum, I can forgive any nonsense so long as it leads to something as exquisite as this.

123

We are towards the end of a very long day and a very long e-mail so let's all go to dinner and have some wine. Trastevere is famous for its trattorias and ristorantes and we had many choices. We had read some kind things in one of our books about a restaurant called Alle Fratte di Trastevere; one of its many allures was that it seemed easy to locate on our map but we still managed to make a wrong turn before finding it. The patio was deserted and it is our usual practice never to eat in an empty restaurant on the logical belief that folks probably know something about it that we have not yet found out. However, there were several tables 124

filled in the lovely interior, the washrooms were immaculate (so many Roman toilets do not have seats), and the ivy-covered patio was appealing so we sat down, shortly to be joined by others following our lead. We had made a very good decision and the Alle Fratte became our favourite, as La Fontanella Sistina had been in 2007. Unlike most eateries they served their red wine slightly chilled, a fine idea in a Roman July. We had our usual split insalata caprese and then, atypically, sprung for artichoke bruschetta which was soooo good. We had hoped to be able to try carciofi (artichoke) alla romana but that required the use of a fresh Roman artichoke and that required a visit before May. We finished off with, for Randi, fettuccine Bolognese and, for Steven, veal scaloppini. Everything -- the patio, the service, the location, the company, and, oh yes, the food -- was excellent. A Roman dinner requires an after dinner walk and we found our way back to Piazza Santa Maria in search of the hotel where we chose not to stay. After a few usual wrong turns we found the gate to the courtyard and everything we could see was as advertised. We crossed back to the right bank on the Ponte Sisto, walking across the Campo Dei Fiori which, at that hour, was jumping with goings-on. Passing an ATM it was worth giving it a try to make sure our Presto debit card could obtain cash should we need it, and the €150 slid out easily, relieving any potential future concerns about running out of money. As is our practice we prepared for sleep by sharing a three scoop gelato (hazelnut, lemon, and pistachio) in a cup from our neighbourhood Gelateria, Frigidarium, on the Via Governo Vecchio. And so endeth the first full day of our 2010 visit to Rome.

Martedì, 13 luglio

125

Sant’Andrea della Valle, Ruins, Turtles, and an Opera We did not need the alarm clock this morning but still were up and out by 8:30. We returned to the Piazza Navona to sit once again and sip cappuccino in front of the Quattro Fiume. Instead, we learned that Italian bars do not open as early as Parisian cafés and found not a place anywhere in the square that would serve us that "early." My guess is that the many eateries around the Piazza Navona primarily serve tourists and the majority of tourists have breakfast and coffee at their hotels so business is lacking in the morning. As we were planning to walk down the Corso Rinascimento as our first church of the day, Sant‘Andrea della Valle, was at the far end of the street we planned instead to stop in the first bar we encountered on that major thoroughfare. The winner of that little contest was the Sapienza Wine Bar (enoteca) opposite St Ivo, the church that was always shuttered and in whose courtyard we would be attending a Mozart concert that night. The Sapienza was a fairly pedestrian, ordinary sort of place that would serve us adequate cappuccini and cornetti at a charge of only six Euros, less than half of what we paid the day before at Tucci‘s. The price was the only thing singular about that experience. Like the Chiesa Nuova, the facade of Sant'Andrea is a stylistic descendant of that most influential of all Roman churches, Il Gesù. In 1582 the Sienese Piccolomini family, who produced a Pope or two in their time, donated their Palazzo in this location to the Theatine Fathers who immediately tore it down to construct a church dedicated to St Andrew. Work began in 1590 and was concluded in 1650. The facade was added five years later, the work of Carlo Maderno, whose brother Stefano had sculpted the sublime Santa Cecilia we saw yesterday. Of course, we couldn't actually see that the facade for ourselves because, like so many other buildings in Rome (including the Chiesa Nuova), it was covered in scaffolding.

126

There is a sculpted angel on the left side of the upper story but, strangely, no matching figure on the right. Pope Alexander VII had criticised the left-hand angel shortly after it was finished, and the enraged sculptor (Ercole Ferrata) refused to continue with the job, proclaiming, "If he wants another, let him make it himself." In the interior decorative scheme Sant‘Andrea resembles the Chiesa Nuova more than Il Gesù. The first two mentioned share a predilection, or what one may call a passion, for gilding whereas the last primarily uses coloured marble to achieve richness of effect. However, Sant'Andrea‘s gilding is sumptuous whereas the Chiesa Nuova‘s is merely gaudy. Its balance of painting and gilded stucco is far more successful and the decoration overhead serves to frame and set off the art, not to smother it. Interestingly, both the art and its gilded framework on the nave ceiling are modern, dating from the early part of the 20th century when the nave pilasters were both fluted and gilded. Its dome is the

second largest in Rome, following that of St Peter‘s of course. It was also designed by Carlo Maderno and is 80 m high and 16 m in

127

diameter. Randi and I could locate it, due to its size, from most anywhere else in Rome that was somewhat elevated. Appropriately enough the two popes that are interred here are from the donor Piccolomini family, Popes Pius II and Pius III, who were transferred here from the original St Peter‘s in 1614. We were here quite early in the morning and had the opportunity to see the sun streaming through large yellow glass windows on the east side illuminating the chapels of the west side with brilliant, golden light.

Perhaps the most delightful surprise in this church for us was the presence in the centre of the nave of a huge (3‘ x 8‘) mirror on a flat base, similar to a table, which was positioned precisely so that we could view the amazing frescoes on the ceiling without stiffening our necks, a frequent problem in Rome. We had not seen this before anywhere and it was a simple and elegant answer to the problem of viewing a vault well over one's head. Would that more churches and palazzos emulate this solution. There was a service of some sort going on in one of the side chapels. No hurry --lots of space still available on the pews. Moreover, Randi and I, had we joined them, would have lowered the demographic significantly.

128

In 1929 Mussolini and the Vatican concluded the Lateran Treaty, which created the independent state of Vatican City. To celebrate the dictator created a wide and rather pompous (not particularly unique to this gentleman) road that led directly from the Tiber to St Peter‘s. In order to create this elephant, called the Via della Conciliazione, many ancient landmarks had to be demolished. Among them was a charming Piazza which had as its central feature a noble fountain created by Carlo Maderno (busy fellow, that) in 1614. Like so many other features of Rome the fountain has migrated over time to the Piazza Sant'Andrea della Valle. Constructed entirely of travertine it is designed on the heroic scale and resembles the twin fountains of the Piazza San Pietro. The stout stem that supports the smaller of the two basins is decorated with the Borghese eagle and griffin. The water drips into the large main basin from whose surface four jets rise and fall back upon themselves. Giacomo Puccini set the first act of his opera, Tosca, inside of Sant'Andrea. The action of the Opera begins when Cesare Angelotti, former consul of the Roman Republic and then a political prisoner, runs into the church and hides in the Attavanti private chapel.

129

The Area Sacra dell’Argentina had been entirely unknown to us in our prior visits but I ran across it in a few of my pre-trip sources and it became a "must see." We passed by it in our uneventful taxi ride from the airport. It was but a two-minute walk as the crow flies and we were there in just under fifteen because we were walking. First, an overview: A = probably a Temple to Jutuna built in the third century BC to celebrate a victory over the Carthaginians. B = a circular Temple dedicated to the god of "Luck of the Current Day‖ built to celebrate a Roman victory in 101 BC. C = the oldest, from the fourth century BC, devoted to Feronia, the goddess of fertility. D = the largest of the four, from the second century BC, dedicated to Lares, who protected sailors, following a naval victory over Antiochus the apparently not-so-great in 190 BC. A fine 360° panorama view is available on the web at: http://www.panoramicearth.com/306/Rome/Area_Sacra_di_Largo_Argentina A quick peek at this site will provide a much better sense than the following picture of how this extraordinary and unexpected island of sunken ruins suddenly appears, besieged but not overwhelmed by hectic Roman traffic, including a major public transit terminus.

130

The Largo, consisting of both Republican-era temples and some few remains of the unimaginably vast Pompey's Theatre (including what is generally agreed upon as the most likely site of the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar), is among the oldest excavated ruins in the city. They were excavated in the 1920s and Mussolini, making an offer the archaeologists couldn't refuse, enclosed the entire dig within high walls. As will be discussed later (when we visit the Imperial Fora) the dictator was often saddened by the impact of excavations upon his beloved vehicular traffic and usually assuaged his pain by seeing that the Fiats were inconvenienced as little as possible. Compared to the incomparably more renowned and studied Roman Forum just a kilometre or two to our east, the Largo is in a relatively outstanding state of preservation and it does not take the breadth of imagination required at the Forum to be able to picture in your mind whatever it was that once stood here. You can completely circumnavigate the Largo and focus on any section that appeals to you, especially if you are able to ignore the continuous sound and smell of buses coming and going amid the Vespas. And, unusual for a Roman archaeological site, there are clear and comprehensive maps and explanations on all sides. There is also a mini-Pompeii experience to be found here in the remnants of fresco on the wall of one of the temples:

131

Romans have a thing for cats and you can find cat sanctuaries around town in places such as the Largo and the Protestant cemetery. The cats are fed and protected at these sanctuaries and prepared for adoption should any passerby feel a tug on their heart. The morning tour continues just a few blocks away in the smallish and drab Piazza Mattei (named for a wealthy family whose grandish and drab Palazzo fails to impress us). In the centre is a treasure worth finding but only for those dedicated explorers who manage to find the Piazza. This is the Fontana delle Tartarughe (Turtle Fountain) which may not be as boisterous or as full throated in its grandeur as the Trevi or the Quattro Fiume fountains, but it may 132

well hold the title of Rome's most charming and/or lovable fountain. In 1570 the water commissioners of Pope Pius V recommended that the fountains of Rome become a construction priority. Among their suggestions was a fountain, and water pipes to feed it, for the Piazza Giuda but the Mattei family was both capable and willing to grease sufficient palms in the Vatican for a change of plans.

The sculptor was the Florentine Taddeo di Leonardo Landini working under the direction of the great Jacopo della Porta, whose name pops up fairly frequently in these notes. Work began in 1581 and was completed three years later. Originally the four youths were intended, like the rest of the fountain, to be sculpted in marble but the absurdly wealthy Mattei family forked over some big bucks to have them cast in bronze. Originally there were dolphins (not turtles) planned for the upper level but for some unknown reason they were never sculpted. Eighty years later the turtles (not dolphins) were added by some sculptor or other, perhaps Bernini, but the details are wholly unknown. 133

The fountain's ruling conceit is simple: four nude youths, astride four tame dolphins, offer helping hands to four thirsty turtles. The turtles are unrelentingly realistic in their inelegant turtleness. The little creatures, so anxious to escape into the water, their forelegs spread out eagerly on the marble rim as they struggle forward, their hind legs in the air, provide the fountain with an irresistible touch of humour and playfulness. During World War II, after the Italians changed to the winning side, literally cutting their losses, the Nazis marched into Rome. The Romans did their best to protect their national treasures but it proved exceedingly tricky to camouflage the Colosseum. However, the turtles were swiftly and carefully removed and hidden away for safekeeping and returned to their traditional perches only after the Allies liberated the city. Among Rome's outdoor sculpted animals, these four humble and endearingly graceless creatures have long occupied a special place. While the morning is not yet done, we are.

Il Gesù Complete and the Campidoglio, Part I Since departing our Palazzo this morning we have had coffee/cornetti, visited Sant‘Andrea della Valle, the Area Sacra dell‘Argentina, and the Fontana delle Tartarughe. Yet, despite the heat, there yet remained quite a bit more to see before we lunch. A few blocks northeast of the Turtle Fountain stands the most architecturally influential church of the Renaissance, Il Gesù. Its impact on future church design was immense, because it offered definitive solutions to the two main problems of Renaissance church design: how to adapt the time-honoured cross-shaped ground plan to the needs of the newly minted Counter-Reformation liturgical service, and how to employ the classical vocabulary on the facade.

134

The ground plan eventually constructed was the result of a close collaboration between architect Giacomo da Vignola and the plutocrat who was paying for it in order to get his name over the door, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. The Cardinal was a very active participant because he knew what he wanted. Il Gesù had to be large and imposing because it would be the mother church of the burgeoning Society of Jesus (Jesuits). The recent (1563) reforms of the Council of Trent introduced a new emphasis on liturgical ceremonies preach to a large congregation and the prevailing Latin cross design (aisles on either side of the nave and transepts of equal size) was neither visually nor

acoustically suited to such preaching. Folks could fall sleep without being seen and corrected. In addition the Latin cross plan could not be entirely ignored because of its symbolic significance as a reminder of the crucifixion. In short, form was at war with function. Vignola‘s solution to the problem was highly ingenious. He truncated the transepts, widened the nave, and replaced the side aisles with a series of small chapels. The result is very nearly a simple rectangle with a semicircular apse attached to one end. But the Latin cross shape is retained; it is now inside the rectangular building shell, defined by the side chapels which fill in the leftover space. The absence of side aisles increases audibility, the truncated transepts increased visibility, and the widened nave increases congregation space. More for the collection box.

135

In designing the facade, Vignola faced a different kind of problem. Renaissance taste prescribed the architectural vocabulary: columns or pilasters, entablatures, and pediments, as derived from the classical Roman temples of old. His solution was inspired. He hid the side roofs behind statuary pedestals and then continued the pedestals across the centre of the facade where they supported upper story pilasters. But genius is not always rewarded: while his architectural design became one of the most widely imitated of all time, it did not appeal to Cardinal Moneybags. He turned the project over to Giacomo della Porta whose design was finally constructed. In eliminating Vignola‘s outer upper story pedestals and replacing his statuary with a ponderous pair of decorative scrolls, della Porta diminished the visual connection between the upper and lower stories. Additionally his elimination of the ground floor niches produced an increase in the amount of blank wall surface on the lower facade. Inside, the decoration is also not as Vignola planned. When it was first constructed, the interior was quite plain, in keeping with the Counter-Reformation spirit of religious asceticism. But this fashion for austerity eventually passed, replaced by a passion for decorative splendour meant to reflect the riches of God's heavenly kingdom. Embellishment of the interior began with the chapels in 1584 and ended with the marbling of the nave pilasters in 1858, a relentless 300 year onslaught seemingly bent on decorating the place to death. So say its critics. We loved it passionately and wholly. Just as the gilding at the Chiesa Nuova and Sant‘Andrea is absurdly perceived as overblown by overblown architectural writers, the many-coloured marbling of Il Gesù is a feast for our greedy senses despite the cautions we received during our research.

136

137

I realise that this is becoming a rather illustration-heavy chapter in this history, but how can I possibly discuss Andrea Pozzo‘s overwhelming monument to St Ignatius in the left transept without having you see for yourself what I am raving about? The founder of Il Gesù‘s raison d‘etre, the Society of Jesus, was St Ignatius of Loyola, a Spanish nobleman and priest who lived from 1491 to 1556. He was the driving force and first Superior General of the Jesuits, a group whose purpose was to serve the Pope as missionaries, spreading the word to heathens and developing religious schools, colleges, and seminaries. It certainly made sense that within the mother church of the Jesuits there would be a major Chapel dedicated to its father. Andrea Pozzo (1642-1709) was a gifted lay brother of the Society with a flair for illustration and painting. In 1695 he was given the commission for one of the most splendidly extravagant of all baroque chapels, that of St Ignatius himself. The altar embraces the whole of the left transept of Il Gesù and contains a stucco copy of the original statue (originally made of silver and gilded copper but destroyed in 1798) within an undulating aedicule (a Roman form of shrine within a Temple usually containing a pedestal supporting two or more columns carrying an entablature and pedestal forming a frame or housing for a cult-statue). Actually, I knew little of this prior to exposure, but enjoyed it perhaps the more because of my ignorance. The significance and importance of this Chapel is emphasised by its use of a large chunk of lapis lazuli, perhaps the most expensive mineral available to artisans during the Renaissance and Baroque. 138

When we finally could tear ourselves away from St Ignatius we came upon a second thoughtful example of user-friendliness, a mirror placed in the aisle of the nave perfectly angled to reflect the astounding ceiling, probably the most startling example of baroque art in all of Rome. The frescoed ceiling was painted between 1672 and 1683 by Giovanni Battista Gaulli. It is a remarkable, dramatic, full-blown baroque response to Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel across town. It combines architectural, sculptural, and painterly elements with great assurance and even greater ingenuity. The title of this masterpiece is "The Adoration of the Name of Jesus," a most unpromising label. But Gaulli has here created a variation on the traditional Last Judgement theme that pulls out all the Baroque stops. Refusing to be 139

contained by its gilded framing medallion the fresco bursts out obliterating the surrounding architecture in three separate places. It is as if the painted figures have come to life and yearn for the ability to tumble down to the floor to have a look in the mirror below to see what they look like above. Look out below! This visit-heavy morning has yet another station on its route. The Capitoline Hill (Campidoglio in Italian) is/was the highest of the seven hills of ancient Rome and was the spiritual centre of ancient Roman life, as the Forum was the administrative centre. As far back as King Tarquinus Superbus it contained the most important Temple in the city, that of Jupiter and the Capitoline Triad. The Capitoline echoes with famous events in Roman history. It was here that the Romans fled to when invaded by Gauls in 390 BC. It was here that Brutus and the assassins locked themselves inside the Temple of Jupiter after murdering Caesar; here that the Gracchi plotted and died; here the triumphant generals overlooked the city for which they fought and where their victorious parades (triumphs) ended with a sacrifice.

When the aqueducts went dry and those Romans who remained headed west to the Campius Martius, both the Forum and the Campidoglio became run down, dilapidated, and overrun by vegetation during the Middle Ages. The Forum was then known as the 140

"Campo Vaccino" (Cattle Field) and the Hill as "Monte Caprino" (Goat Mountain), accurate representations of their respective states. The Tabularium was the Roman Empire‘s bureaucrat-filled Hall of Records, a massive edifice of tufa. Today it forms the foundations for the oldest of the three buildings currently on the Campidoglio, the Palazzo del Senatore. The three buildings (Senatore, the Palazzo dei Conservatori, and the Palazzo Nuovo) that, along with a small Piazza and the only surviving Roman equestrian statue (or at least its copy, the original is nearby), form the modern Campidoglio to comprise the world's oldest example of planned urban redevelopment. In 1537 Pope Paul III first proposed renovating the Piazza and providing it with the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius that had been for centuries in front of the basilica of St John Lateran. At that time it was a gully-scarred, mud-prone open-space bordered by the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli (see next chapter) and two mediaeval palazzi. The placement of the palazzi around the central space was chaotic: the palazzi formed an awkward 80° angle as they faced the square and the facade of the church did not face the Piazza at all. The three buildings were still in use and Pope Paul‘s budget was not inexhaustible so any new plan had to leave the existing structures intact and allow for their continued use during remodelling. Recognising the difficulties these problems presented Pope Paul called on, as so many did in that era, Michelangelo, who was 62 at the time and just turning his hands to architecture for the first time. Not a bad job, not bad at all: he took this jumble of leftovers and constraints and produced Rome's first true modern piazza. Michelangelo's basic idea was revolutionary. Up to that time, Renaissance architecture had been very much a matter of single, isolated buildings. Even when several important structures were purposely placed around a central open space the aim was to display each individual building to maximum advantage, not to relate it to its neighbours and create an aesthetically unified whole. His concept of an ensemble of edifices was utterly new. The details of Michelangelo‘s design were every bit as revolutionary as its underlying idea. Ignoring the pervasive Renaissance belief that the circle and the square were the most philosophically perfect and most aesthetically pleasing geometric forms, 141

he took as his ruling ground plan a trapezoid and an oval. Moreover, he placed one inside the other and gave each its own separate focal point. In so doing, he rejected the traditional central, single-point focus them in the obsession of Renaissance vision ever since the invention of one-point perspective in painting. The first focal point is the facade of the Palazzo Del Senatore which, in order to emphasise it as the dominant side of his trapezoid, Michelangelo redesigned the facade and moved the building's existing campanile to its centre. He added a two-sided staircase to give further weight to his design. He also made a new facade for the Palazzo dei Conservatori providing it with a new ground floor portico to hide its main doorway in deep shadow so that its entrance would not compete with the Senatore. To complete the trapezoid he placed an entirely new building opposite the Conservatori, providing it with a mirror-image twin. At that time, the new addition had no practical function (like a Potemkin village or Hollywood movie set) and was only one room deep. It was there solely to complete the trapezoid and to emphasise the focal point on the Senatore. Michelangelo did not even bother to give a name. To this day it is known simply as the "Palazzo Nuovo." The second focal point is the equestrian statue in the middle of the Piazza which is set in the centre of its own spatial composition: the oval within the trapezoid. (Aside: the bronze equestrian statue has survived, as all others have not, because it was believed by the papacy to be a statue of Constantine, the Emperor who embraced Christianity, and therefore worthy of continued existence. When scholars finally concluded that it was actually of the pre-Christian Emperor Marcus Aurelius it was too late to melt down.) The shallow steps provide the oval with a strong border and they highlight the statue by allowing the ground to rise back to its original level as it approaches the Emperor. Inside the oval, the pavement is decorated with an elegant curvilinear grid which becomes tighter and narrower towards the centre where they reach their point of origin, a twelve pointed star surrounding the statue's pedestal.

142

In order to relate the threestorey Palazzo del Senatore to the two two-storey buildings on either side he hid the building's ground floor behind a double staircase running most of the length of the building. This is a visual masterstroke because it transforms a three- storey building into one of two stories raised on a podium. The staircase also serves to tie the three buildings together. The two statues seen on the photograph to the left were both recycled from ancient Roman fountains and are among the very few of those wonders that have persisted. My sincere intention was to finally complete this morning's perambulations by describing the magnificent Capitoline Museum we next visited but I believe this chapter is quite long enough as is. I expect to hear few, if any, complaints.

Il Campidoglio (Part II) It may appear, since we have taken in such diverse sites this morning, that we are rushing hither and yon all around town from one place to another and then running around the church at full speed so that we can clear out in time to move on to something else. This is not how it was. Since we have very few time obligations (such as our four o'clock appointment yesterday at the French Embassy) and no list of required visits to check off, we move at a pace appropriate to the heat and our ages and spend as much time as we wish, no more no less, exploring and enjoying. If we plan to see something but spend a great deal of time somewhere else we just cancel it. We really don't have a time budget at all. Our secret is the navigator, Randi, who, the night before, studies a map of Rome and tries to find the shortest distance among the many, many things worth seeing and then plots a course with little wasted movement. The Musei Capitolini is thought to be the first public museum in the world. It traces back to 1471 when Pope Sixtus IV donated to the Roman people some bronze statues that had been gathering dust for years in the papal basilica of St John Lateran. This first contribution included two of the current museum‘s most significant items: the she-wolf and the colossal head of Constantine (see below). He required that his donated pieces 143

be displayed at the centre of Imperial Rome's religious life and the mediaeval centre of municipal administration, the Campidoglio. The sculptures had initially been arranged on the external façade and courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. The original nucleus shortly became enriched by the subsequent acquisition of finds from excavations taking place all over the city, all of which were closely linked to the history of ancient Rome. The collection significantly increased in the latter part of the 16th century when Pope Pius V, one of the more fanatical of the Renaissance popes, decided to expel from the Vatican all "pagan" images as part of his lifelong goal of maintaining the purity of the faith by a relentless pursuit of heresy. This is the same worthy that trained for the papacy by vigourously serving as the commissary general and chief torturer of the Inquisition from 1551 until he became Pope fifteen years later. When Michelangelo oversaw the completion of the Palazzo Nuovo it became possible from 1564 onwards to house in a more satisfactory manner the large collection of works that had been gathering dust in the Palazzo dei Conservatori by utilising part of the new building. In 1734 Pope Clement XII acquired a collection of statues and portraits and, to make them available to the public, officially inaugurated the Capitoline museums. The next major expansion of the museums took place towards the end of the 19th century following the designation of Rome as unified Italy's capital city in 1870. Both private collectors and public archaeological digs provided the museums with a wide range of objects worth preserving and exhibiting.

144

The ticket office is situated on the Piazza del Campidoglio, on the ground floor of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. It did not begin well. We ran into one of Steven's most significant bugaboos: the requirement that the €7.50 entrance fee be paid in exact change. This happened to us once before, at the entrance to the Palatine Hill three years ago. They obviously don't need the change and this system, which can only be a convenience for the cashiers, must result far too often in payment with a €10 bill, a manufactured overpayment. As I didn't have the exact change (it isn't a very convenient amount for this extortive policy) and, on principle, I refuse to be so abused, we used our Visa for only the second time (and last) -- the first being paying our bill at the Olivia. So let them eat the Visa fee, a fair and just punishment for this inhospitable bit of customer service. The first stop for all visitors is the Cortile di Marforio, a recently completed glassed-in room that contains the superstars of the collection. The equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius (which survived only because it was thought to be of the Emperor Constantine) was moved from the Piazza St John Lateran when Michelangelo created the Campidoglio design and remained there until 1928 when pollution from Roman traffic (the adjacent Piazza Venezia is Rome's biggest traffic boondoggle) began to do to the statue what the papacy erroneously failed to do 1500 years earlier. It was restored and moved into air-conditioned comfort while a copy stands steaming in the Roman sun in its central location just outside in the Piazza. Prowling adjacent to Marcus is found the omnipresent symbol of Rome, the original shewolf. This is a magnificent bronze of Etruscan origin that dates back to 480 BC and was discovered on the Capitoline Hill itself, thus it has barely lurked at all for 2,500 years. In 145

order to more explicitly serve its symbolic function the two little thirsty fellows, portraying Romulus and Remus, were added below the teats during the 15th century. Among the other noteworthy inhabitants of this glass-enclosed room are the surviving marble body parts of a colossal statue of the Emperor Constantine that originally stood in the Basilica of Maxentius in the Roman Forum. The basilica, the largest assembly of ruins in the Forum, was begun by its namesake but completed by the man who defeated him at the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD. To the victor go the statues. The body parts remaining in the Capitoline Museums probably resemble the battlefield at the bridge. Here you can find its head, two right hands, a left shin, the right arm, the left kneecap, and the right foot. The missing left hand was likely caused by a reworking of the statue by a contemporary artisan who later hoped that his Emperor was not paying very close attention. Those body parts who survived are made of marble; the rest of the body was of brick and stone covered by bronze and was liberated, like most of ancient Rome's bronze artifacts, by vandals some time after the fall of Rome. Based on the dimension of the head it has been estimated that the original statue, sitting upon a throne, was 12 m (40 feet) tall. Following its stripping the statue, like so much else from Imperial Rome, slowly moved downward through the historical 146

sedimentary layers until some dig or other in the Forum brought it to light in 1487 and it was soon unearthed and deposited on the Campidoglio. There is much else to admire in the Musei Capitolini including the wonderful ―Dying Gaul‖ but I will, for once, describe just one more exhibit. You should remember (it was just one e-mail earlier, for gosh sakes) that the Palazzo dei Conservatori was built upon the foundations of the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, the most sacred of all religious sites in ancient Rome. Adjacent to the glass-enclosed room are the archaeological remains of the tufa foundations of that very significant Temple. The past is always buried just below the present in Rome. It has been a busy morning (now, early afternoon) and we are very hungry. The Museum has two adjacent rooftop eateries: an indoor cafeteria and a somewhat tonier outdoor area with table service, the lengthily named Capitoline Relais Jardin Spa. As rich North American tourists we of course chose the latter. It is not a particularly fancy lunch option but it is covered by a large awning, absolutely essential in Rome at high noon in July, and entirely open to a magnificent panoramic view of the bell towers, church domes, and brown tile roofs of the Centro Storico and seven hills. A walk around the Jardin Spa permitted us to, from our high perch on the highest hill, to get a good look at the Theatre of Marcellus, the remnants of the Temple to Apollo, and a bit of the fenced-off area of the Tarpeian Rock, to which dastardly traitors were hurled to their death from the Capitoline Hill. It was sparsely attended and all those who tried to sneak cafeteria food into the restaurant area were quickly captured end exiled back to their own kind. Despite its name the roof garden served light Italian fare and served it pleasantly. We were hot and tired and nothing tasted better than iced coffee (café freddo) and iced tea (te freddo) accompanied by, for Randi, a "Tempio di Giove‖ (tomato, mozzarella, and oregano) and, for Steven, a "Campidoglio" (tuna, tomato, and lettuce), both on olive foccachia bread. A gratis musical accompaniment was provided by an unseen bird who sounded remarkably like an escaped canary and who must have enjoyed the heat because he was

147

certainly celebrating it, to our great delight. And, to top off this perfect lunch, a slight breeze appeared, reminding us why the wealthiest nobles of Rome lived on top of hills.

We left the museums and the Piazza of the Campidoglio and walked down Michelangelo‘s staircase/gateway, a gentle and broad ramp with broad, slightly inclined steps that took us down, down, down to the Piazza Aracoeli below. This is the Scala Cordonata which was designed for both foot and hoof traffic. We had another option and that was to take the 124 narrow and steep steps that lead from the Piazza to its church, Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Not a grueling choice. You would certainly make the same. Santa Maria in Aracoeli rises precisely above the ruins of a temple to Juno Moneta (home of the Imperial Roman mint, hence our word "money"). According to an obviously selfserving Christian legend the Emperor Augustus, disturbed by rumours that the Senate was about to honor him as a God, consulted the Tiburtine Sibyl, who prophesied the descent from the skies of "the King of the ages." As she spoke, the Emperor beheld a marvelous vision - the Virgin standing on an altar in a dazzling light and holding the baby Jesus in her arms - and heard a voice which said: "This is the altar of the Son of

148

God." Of course, the Emperor immediately raised an altar on the site, the Ara Coeli, or altar of the heavens. Utter balderdash, of course. Before long, following the acceptance of Christianity within the Empire, a church grew up around Augustus's altar and by 574 a monastery of Byzantine monks made their home here. From the ninth to the thirteenth centuries the church and monastery belonged to the Benedictines, until in 1249 a papal bull ceded the complex to the Franciscan order. Just as Roman senators of the Empire met nearby to discuss vital issues, during the Middle Ages city elders came here to discuss politics and decide municipal policies. Santa Maria in Aracoeli is still designated as the Church of the Senate and the Roman people (SPQR). The interior consists of a typical early Christian basilica divided into three naves by columns, a repository of art from a wide variety of periods, and a gilded ceiling which commemorates the victory at Lepanto over the Turkish fleet in 1571. Otherwise, by severe Roman standards, it is a rather ordinary church. But it does boast of a small, unimpressive wooden statue of Jesus which is at the centre of Rome's best-loved Christmas ritual. This is the chubby "Il Santo Bambino‖ which is covered in jewels from his crown to his little slippers. Every Christmas Eve the Aracoeli‘s 124-step ramp is lit up by candles and thronged by the Roman populace. Leather-sandaled bagpipers play 149

Christmas music (???) before the church door while inside chandeliers and tapers blaze in preparation for the ceremony. At midnight Il Bambino is brought from his private chapel next to the sacristy to a ceremonial Baroque throne before the high altar. Here, from his perch on the wooden manger, the little guy surveys the Christmas scene and receives tributes from the greedy children of Rome. Mothers encourage their children to enter a temporary wooden pulpit where prayers, poems, or requests are recited before him. Il Santo Bambino remains in his place of honor until Epiphany, when he is taken in procession to the top of the Aracoeli's steep staircase for a benediction of the city and its people, and then returned (after being exposed for an entire day for Romans to give him the traditional Epiphany kiss) to his personal chapel at the back of the church. Il Santo Bambino has worked miracles down through the ages. Upon request, the statue is transported to hospitals or to the beds of Rome's sick and dying, and has been known to bring about inexplicable cures. Inexplicably, of course. Up to a few years ago he made his charitable visits in a gilded carriage donated by the people of Rome. He still receives letters from all over the world; they pile up on both sides of his private altar, and after a certain time are burned without being opened. In February, 1994, to the horror of all Rome, Il Bambino was stolen and was never recovered, perhaps by a local Grinch or, more likely, for its jewels. To avoid major disappointment and many tears a copy was quickly produced and Christmas, 1994 went off without a hitch. One last item from the Piazza d‘Ara Coeli and that is its fountain of 1589. It was constructed as soon as the precious water from the Acqua Felice reached the Capitoline Hill. It was designed by the usual Jacopo della Porta and has a central jet descending into a basin which trips water into a larger basin beneath which, in its turn, overflows into a pool at ground level. At the top there is a short column which rises from the upper basin, terminating in the three heraldic hills of the great Sixtus V, who made the water to pour from his Acqua Felice. Directly beneath are four smiling infants, each holding a vase from whose spout springs a jet of water. These figures were copied by della Porta from the most popular fountain of the 15th century which had been erected in front of the old St Peters in 1490. The quartet is the only surviving remembrance of 150

that fountain which was lost when Piazza San Pietro was rebuilt by Bernini. The four children are cheerful because they get to gaze for all eternity upon two endless flights of steps neither of which they will ever have to climb.

Insulae, a Wedding Cake, Mussolini, and Windswept Marble Looking back up at those 124 steps to Aracoeli in the shimmering midafternoon heat we had no regrets at skipping this church. We began to walk towards the traffic-riddled Piazza Venezia curving around the base of the massive and blindingly white Vittorio Emmanuele monument dominating the Piazza. It is difficult for both visitors and Romans to be neutral about what has been derided as "the typewriter" and "the wedding cake.‖ One either finds it irresistible it or resists it. I lean towards the latter, Randi towards the former. ―Il Vittoriano‖ is a monument that is continually criticized for being too white, too big, too new. In reality, the monument was created as a monument to civic pride in a unified Italy and is a testament to what Rome once resembled.

151

The monument is made up of a vast structure filled with arching stairways supported by tall Corinthian columns, playful fountains, a statue depicting Victor Emmanuel on horseback as well as two statues of the goddess Victoria, and the eternal flame at the tomb of Italy's Unknown Soldier, guarded day and night by sentinels. The Institute of the History of the Risorgimento is an important reminder of the struggle Italy went through to become united in the 19th century. At the base of the structure there is the museum of Italian Reunification where visitors can obtain a useful pamphlet which identifies the many sculptures and landmarks seen from the summit. It is well-known that the views from the top are among the finest in all of Rome and even better wellknown that we are unlikely to climb there, especially in this heat. This monument is one of ancient Rome's newest acquisitions. Created to honor both unified Italy and its first king, Victor Emmanuel, it was designed by Giuseppe Sacconi in 1895 and the sculptural work was shared by established sculptors from all over Italy. The piece was begun in 1911 and completed in 1935. Mussolini found the subtlety of 152

the design and execution to his taste. Many Italians feel the monument sticks out as too pristine among the much older surrounding relics. The placement of the monument has been one of the things critics complain most about. It has been said to be "chopped with terrible brutality into the immensely complicated fabric of the Capitoline hill." The structure is 135 m (443 ft) wide and 70 m (230 ft) high and launches out of the hillside drawing attention away from neighboring attractions. When the building was constructed, little care was paid to those relics standing in its way and it is believed this newbie might be covering older and far more valuable pieces of Roman history. I do appreciate the value of its glaring whiteness and massive size when trying to get around the city. Like the ancient temple of Jupiter it is visible from most everywhere and serves as a useful lighthouse for navigational purposes. At the corner of one of its bases are the remains of an ancient Roman apartment building, called an insula. When one thinks of Roman houses one naturally thinks of the homes of the wealthy (domus) which were single (but quite extended) family houses built around an atrium, a large main hall open to the elements. By the late 2nd century BC, the design had been amended, adding many smaller rooms, a peristyle and/or courtyard, and sometimes baths. There was usually only one door and one or two windows which faced the street. The size of a house was a reflection of the wealth of the owner. A nicer house might have the atrium, which served as a type of reception hall/living room, leading into the tablinum, where the family records (tabulae) and portraits of ancestors (imagines) would be kept. Other rooms could include cubiculi (bedrooms), a triclinia (dining room), oeci (reception rooms), a kitchen, and a lavatory. The wealthy might also have accommodations for baths or a library. Since all family members were expected to reside with the paterfamilias and a certain number of slaves were required to do the nasty work of the household a domus was a busy place where the daily necessities of life were played out and where the master of the house sat upon the mornings waiting for his clients (lesser folk with whom he has a 153

business/social relationship) to call on him to and to accompany him to the Forum and then the baths. The client/patron relationship was critical to Roman business. Not a bad way of life for the wealthy but the vast majority of free Romans lived under a roof together in an unsafe and unsanitary insula. By the end of the 1st century BC a growing pressure for land in many larger, overpopulated cities gave rise to the apartment building which became the most common form of Roman living quarters. Most apartment blocks were made with timber and mud brick, making them prone to fire and collapse. The upper floors were without heating or running water. Later designs seemed to have been built more safely, with fired brick and concrete, but there were no other improvements as far as sanitation and standard of living. To address some of the safety issues Augustus limited the height of apartments to 60 Roman feet, a maximum of five stories. Later, Nero imposed fire regulations. Few intact examples of Roman insulae remain today. The Capitoline Insula, also known as the Insula dell'Ara Coeli or Insula Romana, was built between 100 and 120 AD and stood at the bottom of the Capitoline Hill on the opposite side of the Roman Forum. It is one of the best existing examples of a brick-built apartment block (as opposed to many that were built with wood, were firetraps, and naturally have not survived). Demolition for the "wedding cake" in the 1930s, which removed the Renaissance church of Santa Rita de Cascia, uncovered these living quarters. Many other similar buildings were discovered in the area at that time, but only this one was preserved. After the fall of the 154

empire in the fifth century most of the insula, and indeed much of the rest of Rome too, was buried. In the 11th century the upper floors of the building were rediscovered and became part of the church of San Biagio de Mercato. Santa Rita de Cascia was then built on top of St Biagio de Mercato in 1665 by the architect Carlo Fontana. Roman historical sedimentation at its best. The building has now been excavated and has five storeys, including a mezzanine. It is thought the building originally had six floors – but only traces remain of the sixth. The rooms on the three existing upper floors of the insula were for residential use and included features such as wooden paving and rectangular windows with wooden window frames. On the second floor there are the remains of a balcony. Rooms on the upper floors are smaller, and therefore it is thought they were rented out to poorer citizens. It is believed that this insula could well have housed up to 380 people – almost twice the number of most insulae of the time. It is an excellent location except for the astonishing noise from the Piazza Venezia and we looked into renting one of the rooms but changed our minds when we were politely informed that neither air conditioning nor elevators were among the multitude of Imperial Roman engineering accomplishments. It was time to start walking homewards to an insula with air conditioning and elevators but had to cross the impossibly busy Piazza Venezia or spend one half hour walking around it. We were still new to the "keep moving across the crosswalk" routine but by the time we got to the other side of this monstrosity we had become experts. Anyone visiting Rome will sooner or later end up at the Piazza Venezia. Unlike pleasant piazzas like Navona and Popolo (and just about every other one) this one is dominated by chaotic and choking traffic and has several major Corsos and many bus lines that either end here or pass right through. In the photo to the left, taken from the "typewriter" by some fool who had climbed the steps, you can see on the left the Palazzo from which the Piazza took its name. 155

Begun in 1451 when one of Pope Eugenius IV‘s "nephews," Pietro Barbo, became a Cardinal, as did so many Papal nephews of the Renaissance and baroque. He required an appropriate residence for such an august churchman who had obviously toiled long and hard for his position. He built it around the ninth century mediaeval tower still seen on its corner. An early preservationist. Requiring stone and not willing to pay much for it Cardinal Barbo did what so many of his contemporaries did: he pillaged a magnificent Roman monument for his materials. Much of the stone of its exterior came from the Colosseum. The Cardinal was soon punished for this desecration of history and culture by being named Pope Paul II and the Palazzo Venezia spent the next few years proudly as a papal residence. It received its current appellation in 1564 when Pope Pius IV donated the Palazzo to the Republic of Venice for its embassy and as home for the future Cardinals of San Marco, always Venetians. In 1797 it evolved into the Austrian Embassy and remained so until World War I when it was seized by the Italian government. The Palazzo Venezia reached the height of its fame, or infamy, when Benito Mussolini decided it would make an excellent office for His Pompousness. It was from here that he greeted his junior partner Adolf Hitler and it was from here that he decided to tear down important historical buildings and split the Imperial Fora in half so that he could construct his massive and ugly Via dei Fori Imperiale so that he and der Fuhrer could look out his office window in the Palazzo and see the Colosseum, at least what was left of it after the Palazzo was built. The balcony in the above photo was his favourite perch for haranguing his subjects for hours while he made silly faces and gestures. You can see the lower part of the Roman fasces (who among you remembers what these are?) he had 156

carved onto the Palazzo from which he derived the name of his political party and which has become synonymous with iron dictatorships. Having survived the crossing of the perilous Piazza Venezia we decided to check on the status of the door of the church adjacent to Bernini's elephant statue, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and found it to be open so enter we did. The facade of the church is quite unadorned and monotonous but behind it stands the one and only Gothic church in all of Rome. The first church on the site was built atop a Roman Temple to Minerva around the turn of the fourth century. The present church dates from 1280 and has become a significant church for the Dominican Friars, leaders of the Inquisition. Like so many others it has been renovated time and time again, most significantly by Carlo Maderno in the 17th century, and as recently as the 19th century. The three round openings in the dreary facade (of 1453) contain rose windows, a sure diagnostic finding for a Gothic church. It shows its Gothic roots its pointed arches and ribbed vaults in the nave rather than the rounded arches found in most of Rome's other churches. However, the soaring verticality of northern European Gothic cathedrals is nowhere to be seen. Maderno‘s baroque renovations have mitigated the sense of Gothic and the stained glass windows are 19th century. The marble facings of the overzealous 19th-century restoration simply added a Victorian Gothic Revival to interior that was never all that Gothic to begin with.

157

by

an

What Santa Maria sopra Minerva lacks in architectural integrity it more than makes up in the quality of the art contained within. The luminously delicate Filippino Lippi fresco cycle of 1488-92 in the Carafa Chapel commemorates the life and works of St Thomas Aquinas. Other chapels contain other significant works and art topped by Michelangelo's "Christ Bearing the Cross" (1519). There are tombs and monuments aplenty of folks who were quite well known then if not now. My research had uncovered a Bernini "bust" named the "Monument to the Venerable Maria Raggi" (1643) here and, as a Bernini, it became the target of a major searchand-enjoy mission to find the pillar upon which was rumoured to sit. I think we walked back and forth several times before we discovered that the bust was not a bust. With that knowledge, we found it. This monument essentially introduced the concept of pictorial sculpture which Bernini had created. The monument is in the form of a windswept, hanging drapery of black marble bordered with yellow ochre marble along its sides and bottom edge. Two flying putti support a giltbronze portrait medallion and the whole is surmounted by a cross that seems to also act as a large stick-pin fastening the cloth to the pillar. Both of us stood in awe in front of 158

this magnificent Bernini creation astonished that marble could be worked in such a manner. BTW: I later discovered Bernini had actually carved a real bust, one of Giovanni Vigevano, which was present and accounted for in the church. Fortunately, we found the medallion first. If we had first discovered that bust which we had originally been searching for, we probably never would have stumbled on, let alone worshipped, Sister Maria Raggi. Only one other brief item to mention: we passed by the Palazzo Madama and were once again confronted by the sight of large men in uniform carrying large and very dangerous- looking machine guns. Turned out that this Palazzo is home to the Italian Senate. Very scary stuff. We walked very quickly by, past several groups of protesters kept a block away. It had been a long morning/early afternoon of activities on a very hot day and we were most pleased to turn on the apartment‘s two air conditioners, drink large glasses of orange juice, take cold showers, and hit the sack. Did we really accomplish that much today? Yes, we did. And without rushing around.

Mozart, Caravaggio and Two More Churches After such a demanding morning/early afternoon chock full of things to see we napped the sleep of the just for several hours. Upon awakening we found ourselves ravenous for pizza and, as our evening activity was in the neighbourhood, we headed once again for Pizzeria Montecarlo where we had dined our first night. We found the joint jumping but saw one table free near the middle of the patio and grabbed it. This time we broke one of the rules by ordering just one pizza for the two of us to share although we made up for it by also ordering a large salata mista (mixed salad) and a house specialty, fried mozzarella balls, to have before the prosciutto pizza arrived. Or so we had hoped. Oddly, they furnished us with but one glass each from which to drink our bottled water and wine just as they did on Sunday night. We saw the same circumstance on several other tables. Unsurprisingly, all of us asked for another set of glasses as house wine is often already slightly watered down. I don't understand why we must ask; it appears to be the house policy. Don't we all ask? On top of that our pizza arrived just a minute or 159

two after both the salad and the mozzarella balls made their appearance filling the table beyond its topographical capacity and forcing us into tableside acrobatic manoeuvers. The food was excellent but this was undoubtedly the worst service we have ever experienced in all of Italy. Unlike MacArthur, we shall not return. It was just a short stroll across the Piazza Navona onto the Corso Rinascimento where we easily found St. Ivo alla Sapienza, the Borromini church with the wonderful lantern but with the closed-door policy that we visited yesterday. The door was still shuttered this evening but several hundred chairs were set up in the courtyard and, although we were fifteen minutes early, so was everyone else and the line had already formed. Italy has changed quite a bit since 1979 when queueing was culturally illegal. Yesterday we had purchased two tickets for the International Chamber Ensemble, a group of mostly young students/musicians led by Francesco Carotenuto who were part of a regular summer series of concerts, Serate di Grande Musica al Cortile di S. Ivo alla Sapienza. The dramatic location was a sufficient argument for dropping €38 on two tickets but the concert was entirely of Mozart and therefore was a worthwhile activity even had it been performed in a bathtub. The programme consisted of three of his early serenades (a serenade is a musical form denoting a performance of vocal or instrumental music in the open air at night, as by a lover under the window of his beloved), K136. K137, and K138. As anticipated these were quite amiable but rather minor league Mozart and not entirely memorable. After intermission came two mature masterpieces beginning with the Serenata, K525, known somewhat better as the Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music). The second movement theme, the Romanza, got me through many late nights of cramming in my university days. There was a classical music station in New York at the time whose overnight disk jockey (Bill something-or-other) chose an idiosyncratic and remarkable playlist and was capable of playing the entire Bach B-minor Mass and then announcing that only one piece of music was capable of following it and then played it again from start to finish. His theme music was the Romanza from K525 and this piece still resonates warmly with me, as it probably does with anyone fortunate enough to experience it. It kept me wonderful company while I was underlining both the underlying and precipitous causes of World War I.

160

The final work was inconsistent in tone for what preceded it. The Adagio and Fugue in C- minor, K546 (―K‖ refers to the catalogue of Mozart‘s works compiled by Ludwig Alois Ferdinand Ritter von Köchel in 1862), is scored for string quintet (a double bass is added to the usual string quartet). It is a highly dramatic, very rhythmic, and somewhat dissonant work with anachronistic memories of Johann Sebastian Bach‘s contrapuntal techniques. While it remains essentially pleasing to the modern ear it was quite a change of emotional pace considering what had transpired earlier. The two brief encores returned the concert to its congenial and lyrical roots and we all departed in an orderly fashion, our moods blessed by exposure to the miraculous Mozart in the gorgeous courtyard of Borromini's St. Ivo alla Sapienza on a warm Roman evening. Randi's observations are silent on whether or not we concluded the evening with gelato. It is difficult for me to believe that we didn't but, in the absence of evidence, I shall maintain the meticulousness of the record and not say that we did. Her notes are equally mute on whether or not we slept that night but, in this instance, I shall risk documenting that we did.

Mercoledi, 14 luglio We not only slept, we slept exceedingly long and woke up at the ridiculous time of 9:15. Fortunately, we had no particular engagements scheduled for today and leisurely consumed our cereals and tomatoes before heading out for cappuccini. Due to the late hour our friendly Piazza Navona friend Tucci was also awake and remembered our (very common) order from Monday morning. We also remembered to sit directly across from Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers which is a rather nice place to be of a morning. Also due to the late hour Borromini's church on the Piazza, Sant’ Agnese in Agone, had an inviting, open door through which we quickly and excitedly passed. This, as the name communicates, is a church dedicated to the painful martyrdom of St Agnes. The story goes that St Agnes was a beautiful young girl, born in the late third century just before Rome converted to Christianity. Bad timing, rather. When she was thirteen years old, she renounced marriage in favour of Christ, and her frustrated suitors betrayed her Christianity to the authorities. She was consigned to a brothel, but when she was stripped of her clothes, her nudity was hidden from view by the sudden and spontaneous growth of her hair. An early Rapunzel. Continuing to resist the threat of her persecutors, she was condemned to be burned at the stake, but the flames refused to touch her. Ultimately she was beheaded and was buried on the Via Nomentana where one of Rome's oldest churches (c. 350) was built in her honour.

161

The Piazza Navona is traditionally thought to be the setting of the brothel to which she was confined. A church was constructed on the site as early as the eighth century but when Pope Innocent X renovated the Piazza in the mid-17th century he decided to replace the existing structure entirely, in part because it was oriented away from his family Piazza. He planned for the new church to be far larger to complement the size and scale of the enlarged Pamphili family Palazzo next door (now the Brazilian embassy) and the magnificent new fountain by Bernini in the centre of the square. It may be just one church but it had many architects assigned to it. Over the twenty years of its construction (1652-1672) it was variously under the direction of Girolamo Rainaldi, Francesco Borromini, Girolamo‘s son Carlo, Borromini‘s great rival and brotherin-genius Bernini, and back to Carlo Rainaldi. Pope Innocent X had died three years after ground breaking and his heirs had far less interest in paying for it.

162

Given such a history (too many cooks) the facade has no business being as good as it is. The basic plan is by Girolamo, the basic design is Borromini's, the twin towers are Carlo's, and the attic is Bernini's. Somehow all the disparate elements manage to cohere beautifully. Inside, the church‘s splitpersonality origins are far more evident. On the lower level, up to the cornice, the decoration is limited to carving, reflecting Borromini's preference for pure architecture accented only by sculpture. Above the cornice painting and gilding predominate, reflecting Bernini's propensity to combine all the arts into one grand, comprehensive scheme. This artificial segregation sets off an unseemly decorative contest with marble sculpture squaring off against gilded painting. The interior is so abundant in its decoration that the overall effect verges on cacophony, as each level tries to outshout the other. Of course, as usual, and despite this critical quibbling, we loved it. The ground plan is unusual for Rome being based upon a centralised Greek Cross, a plan that eliminates the usual nave and lends the dome special prominence and drama. Considering the relatively diminutive size of Sant‘ Agnese, the dome is both quite substantial and raised very high off the floor. The early plans for the new St Peter‘s (by Bramante and then Michelangelo) were based on such a cross, but were ultimately rejected in favour of the traditional cross shape. Had St Peter‘s been carried out as initially planned the church of Sant Agnese would provide a reasonable preview, on both the interior and exterior, of what St Peter‘s would have resembled. Below the church, in traditional Roman fashion, there are ruins, supposedly of the brothel in which St Agnes was briefly confined. They can be entered through a door to the right of the altar but not by us as we found the door locked.

163

The next church on the itinerary Randi developed last night is the far more dramatic San Luigi dei Francesi (St Louis of the French). The site was originally owned by the monks of the Abbey of Farfa and located above several significant Roman ruins including the Baths of Agrippa (the first of the Imperial Baths) and Nero. The Florentine Medici family assumed control of the site in the early 16th century and Cardinal Guilio de Medici (later the disastrous Pope Clement VII), in 1518, commissioned a French architect, de Cheneviere, to construct a church for the French community of Rome. Ironically, work had to cease during the appalling Sack of Rome (1527) by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V who, among other things, was angered by the incompetent diplomatic manoeuvrings of Pope Clement. It was finally completed in 1589. The busy and peripatetic architect, Domenico Fontana, rejected Il Gesù‘s narrow-upper-story-on-wider-lowerstory precedent and chose instead equal upper and lower storeys creating a boxier shape in its facade. The most immediately conspicuous feature of the interior is its Baroque decorative scheme of marble, paint, and gilded stucco added by Antoine Derizet in 1760. However, the Baroque overlay does not smother the architecture it decorates. The gilding may be, as usual, extensive and elaborate, but the overall effect is tempered by the logical and consistent use of marble and paint. The end result is luxurious rather than garish, opulent rather than gaudy. For once, we agree with the critics. It seems that you can't embellish anything too much for our tastes. Despite the elaborate ornamentation and the zillion fleur-de-lis on the ceiling what is most notable about San Luigi is the decision made around the turn of the 17th century to commission Michelangelo Caravaggio (see following digressive chapter on this 164

fascinating fellow) to paint three canvases for its Contarelli Chapel. Here, painted expressly for this location and set into the walls with a simplicity and magnificence that is without peer in Rome, are Caravaggio's three great masterpieces illustrating the life of St Matthew (painted 1599-1602): from left to right within the Chapel, The Calling, The Martyrdom, and The Inspiration. Caravaggio's dramatic, almost hallucinatory use of intense light and murky dark was a new development in art and was hugely controversial in its day and for some time afterwards. The play of light and dark, and the brilliant colours illuminated and highlighted by that play, produces a visual intensity they had never before been achieved in art, and has rarely been achieved since.

Obviously this photograph is but a pallid portrayal of these three masterpieces in their original setting but it does give you an idea of how they are displayed in the Chapel. This is as good a time as any to introduce you to the concept of coin machines. These little boxes are set up in many churches and will provide you with about thirty seconds of artificial illumination in a small, carefully defined area of little natural light. To do so

165

they require a Euro or so and are one of the most successful fund raising concepts the Catholic Church has developed to strip pilgrims and tourists of their money. We will proceed next to an even more extravagant and dazzling church (Sant‘ Ignazio di Loyola) but first we must take a short detour to look at the life and times of one of the most prodigiously talented, flawed, and named of geniuses, Michelangelo Caravaggio.

Digression #2: Michelangelo Merisi, Called Caravaggio Sure, I had researched Rome quite assiduously prior to this visit, far more than I had on previous Roman vacations or, for that matter, than on any previous European sojourns. Yet, perhaps the most rewarding aspect of any expedition (of anywhere) is the unexpected; the sudden coming upon something you had not known was there. There is no city like Rome for surprises, for turning a corner and being confronted with seven large marble columns that once had supported a pediment which is now just standing there with no observable purpose. When we first came to Rome in 1992 I had heard of Caravaggio as some sort of artist but not with any particular knowledge or expectation. I had quite liked his small painting of Medusa that we had seen in 1979 in Florence‘s Uffizi Gallery but I had not particularly noted the artist and would not have been able to describe it as a ―Caravaggio.‖ In 1992 it was much the same thing although we were exposed to a few more of his paintings at the Vatican Museums. With a shamed face I confess to equal ignorance in 2007. This year I was more prepared and had marked off several churches as must-visits because of their Caravaggio‘s, such as the Santa Maria del Popolo and the San Luigi dei Francesi‘s Contarelli Chapel as well as the Doria-Pamphili Gallery and the Capitoline Museums. Nonetheless I had underestimated both his fame and popularity once again and had not taken scrupulous note of the anniversary of his death or expected that anyone else had done so.

166

Yet as soon as we deplaned we were exposed to any number of posters, banners, newspaper articles, and museum flyers announcing that due to 2010 being the 400th anniversary of his death special exhibitions would be held all over the city during the entire year. His paintings were removed from one locale to another so that a larger collection could be amassed in one venue and cities all over Italy shipped their best Caravaggio‘s to Rome. It was certainly a big deal and reminded me that once again I had underestimated this most interesting and influential of all early 17th century Italian artists. In this gap I am not alone. Few artists have been so talked about in their lifetime or so quickly forgotten after their deaths. Caravaggio was notorious both as a painter and as a swordsman. While the novel way he utilised his skill spawned a race of imitators and followers, some of great distinction, his unbalanced behaviour ruined his career and alienated faithful supporters and friends. He was a meteor, dazzling but ultimately short-lived. By the early years of the 20th century he was essentially unknown except for a few pointy-headed art majors. Led by the scholar Roberto Longhi his reputation has since been resuscitated and he now takes his place among the most respected and admired artists in the world. Even those who find his religious works to be perversely sadistic, his secular paintings to be sexually confusing, and his criminal history an indictable offence admire his originality and his unique handling of paint.

167

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (as he was called by his contemporaries) was born to Fermo (a builder) and Lucia Merisi in the small Lombard town of Caravaggio in the autumn of 1571. At 13 he signed on as an apprentice to an obscure Milanese painter, Simone Peterzano, where he remained for four years. The years 1588 to 1592 are lost to history. His sound knowledge of Northern Italian artistic traditions argue for a period of wandering and studying. His mother's death in 1590 resulted in a small inheritance which was given to the four children in 1592; Caravaggio put his in a purse and set off for Rome, then neither the most populous nor most powerful city on the Italian peninsula. He may well have chosen Rome because his uncle, a priest, had already settled there and his brother had made plans to follow him shortly. Whatever the reasons, Rome was an excellent match for him. So long as a painter could gain the ear of a discriminating patron it was a wonderful moment for him to arrive in Rome. There were enormous sections of fresco to be painted in the Papal Cathedral Church of San Giovanni in Lateran as the Jubilee year of 1600 inexorably approached. The arrival of Annibale Carracci (see: the vault of the Palazzo Farnese) in 1595 gave Rome the honour of the simultaneous presence of two towering geniuses who could influence each other and all those around them. The Council of Trent (1545-63) had defined the Catholic Church's response to the Reformation and ultimately provided a great deal of work for many generations of artists, Caravaggio among them.

168

Initially Caravaggio made his way by his wits. It would have been uncharacteristic for him to have carefully nursed his small inheritance and there is no record that he did so. Over the next few years he was taken in by a priest and fed on lettuce, he painted small pictures and sold them on the streets, and he may have painted portraits in the streets, like the artistic caricaturists in the Piazza Navona do nowadays. He developed a facility for producing small canvases either demonstrating his dexterity in still life (expected of all Lombard-trained artists) and in paintings of imagined self-contained dramas in which he used neighbours or ordinary folk he found on the streets as his models. Paintings such as "The Fortune Teller" (1594) above led to his joining the household of Cardinal Francesco Del Monte in the Palazzo Madama (now the home of the Roman Senate, guarded by uniformed soldiers with machine guns) where he remained until the end of the century. The Cardinal was celibate, or so the story went, but he had a reputation as a homosexual who favoured boys and some of these youngsters found themselves hired as models for Caravaggio's paintings, such as the ―Bacchus‖ of 1596:

169

The Cardinal was a generous patron for Caravaggio, perhaps too tolerant of the artist‘s temperamental moods and temper tantrums. Finally, in 1601, Caravaggio packed up his palette and paints and went a few blocks to the Palazzo Mattei, where, had he looked out the window, he could enjoy the brand spanking new Fountain of the Tortoises in the middle of the Piazza. His new patron was Cardinal Girolamo Mattei, the papal protector of the Franciscan order, who rattled around the enormous Renaissance family Palazzo. The influence of the learned and austere Cardinal Mattei brought a more profound note to Caravaggio's art. The discovery and testing of faith are themes that run through his paintings of this period, even those painted for other patrons. While some conventional clerics found his art difficult to take noble patrons, both religious and lay, competed for his favours. He became a celebrity and, like many of that class, behaved in a spoiled and temperamental manner. After spending a few hours painting he would "go out on the town with his sword at his side, like a professional swordsman." He became familiar to the police and judges of Rome. In 1601 he was taken to court for slashing an enemy's cloak and donating a permanent scar to the face of a guard at the Castle Sant'Angelo. Two years later he, and several other painters, was accused of libel by a competitor. Caravaggio was arrogant in court and found himself imprisoned for a fortnight before the French ambassador intervened and arranged for his release. It is not coincidental that 170

at this time he was producing his three large paintings for San Luigi, Rome's French church, on the subject of St Matthew. "The Calling of St Matthew" is perhaps the bestknown of the three. He was needed back on the job site to finish the job.

No longer living with a Cardinal protector he was next placed under house arrest and told that without written permission he could not leave it on pain of being made a galley slave. After a brief period of good behaviour he was arrested again, in 1604, for 171

throwing a plate of artichokes at a waiter, for throwing stones, and for abusing the police. The next year he was arrested for carrying a sword and dagger without a license (what, no Second Amendment rights?). Later that year he was placed in jail for bothering a woman and her daughter. He was bailed out by friends on that charge but only nine days later he drew his sword on a lawyer (a crime at that enlightened point in history) over a woman‘s reputation and wisely fled Rome for Genoa until that blew over. When a new Pope, Paul V Borghese, took office in 1605 his "nephew" Scipione Borghese developed a boundless appetite for collecting paintings and a great indulgence towards his favourite painter. Within weeks of, like all papal nephews, being appointed Cardinal he arranged for Caravaggio to make peace with the lawyer he had assaulted and the charges were dropped. Cardinal Borghese set about acquiring as many of his works as he could using such noble techniques as declaring certain taxes to be unpaid and kindly offering to accept masterpieces as payment in full. Things were looking up for Caravaggio but, as always, he managed to once again ruin a pleasant state of affairs. In May, 1606 he quarrelled over a tennis wager with a young man which rapidly turned into a fight with drawn swords. In the end Ranuccio Tomassino was wounded in the thigh and died shortly afterwards. As a man guilty of a capital crime Caravaggio could no longer rely upon the good will of Cardinal Borghese and took flight. Once again he found a noble protector in the fantastically wealthy Colonna family who sheltered him on their estates. Despite their kindly intervention Caravaggio felt the need to reside well beyond the reach of the Papacy and the Roman police and moved to Naples where he would be in the dominions of the King of Spain. While in Naples he sang for his supper by producing a series of dramatic and powerful religious paintings such as the "Seven Works of Mercy," "The Death of the Virgin," and (pictured left, with a mood of acute pain) "The Flagellation of Christ:" It was not in his nature to remain 172

stationary very long and by mid-July of 1607 Caravaggio washed up on the shores of, of all places, Malta, which at that time was unique in Christendom in that it was a sovereign state presided over by a religious fraternity. A few patrons on the island organised a deal whereby the artist could become a Knight of Malta and thus become beyond papal jurisdiction. On 14 July Malta awarded Caravaggio with the rank of a brother and Knight of obedience. He showed his appreciation by painting for the brotherhood perhaps his most tragic painting, a huge altarpiece for the Maltese Cathedral of Valletta which represented "The Beheading of St John the Baptist," the patron saint of Malta. The artist was triumphant and successful: he had social standing, two slaves, a rich collection of gold, and the freedom to walk about as a free man with nothing to fear from the local police. But, of course, his nature ensured that his good fortune could not last. He somehow crossed a fellow Knight badly enough to be imprisoned in a Maltese cell which overlooked the harbour. With the help of his omnipresent influential friends he managed to escape and found himself on a boat heading to Syracuse on Sicily. The Knights of Malta recognised their recruiting blunder and he was deprived of his habit and ultimately expelled from the Order to be "thrust forth like a rotten and fetid limb." His Sicilian adventure was consistent with his previous biography. He painted a brilliant and powerful "Raising of Lazarus‖ for a religious Sicilian order and then slashed the canvas with his dagger when it was criticised. October of 1609 found him back in Naples where he once again became engaged in a brawl outside a tavern which resulted in, not imprisonment for a change, but instead a disfiguring facial wound. Back on a boat going elsewhere, this time north of the Papal States, he fell ill of malaria and 18 July, 1610, "without the aid of God or man" died. He was not yet 40 years of age at his death but it would be difficult to find any artist, before or after, whose life was as chaotic and violent as his. His paintings often took place in front of blank walls or in an undefined space. His use of directional lighting and the increasingly enveloping darkness may have masked some of his technical deficits but his art appears so spontaneous that lapses in execution are often overlooked. He was often attacked for his perceived lapses in taste. Clerics were unhappy that his models for gods and martyrs were recognisable people, and peasants at that, that many of his lead characters had dirty feet, and that his Madonnas were not very beautiful. A contemporary complained that Caravaggio "suppressed the dignity of art," yet it is for this reason that he appealed to the sophisticated patrons who bought his works and that 173

he won so many disciples in the first half of the 17th century. Few makers of sacred images have done so well despite their iconoclasm. This unorthodox achievement gives Caravaggio an originality which is as startling in our day as it was in his. Enough words. Two of his most impressive paintings, either of which could have found gainful employment as still photographs from contemporary horror films: "Judith Beheading Holofernes," 1599, Palazzo Barberini, Rome:

A bloody mess made by Judith as she is egged on by her crone of a servant. It was the first of his paintings to centre on a brutal action. The horror of the action is clearly the painting‘s primary concern. The competition is so enclosed that neither the eye of the viewer nor the actors themselves can escape its brutal force. Although an annoying service in Santa Maria del Popolo, probably a funeral, unfairly cut off our route to what I think is his finest achievement, the Crucifixion of St Peter as 174

depicted by Michelangelo Caravaggio remains my favourite of his works. I find it a bit tiresome that martyrs, in the midst of their painful martyrdom, always seem to possess a beatific and peaceful, if not orgasmic, facial and body expression. In this painting old St Peter seems to be thinking, "Whatever have I done? Why did I volunteer to be crucified upside down? This will hurt. This is hurting. Is it worth it? Get me off this cross -- I'm sorry for anything I've done that has made you so angry with me. Ouch!" This is a sombre and intense painting. There is no crowd, just three executioners who fit into a criss-cross pattern, each marked out by the colours of their clothes but made anonymous, for two men have their backs to the spectator and the third‘s face is in darkness. The psychological meaning of the picture is found in St Peter‘s agony. In a Caravaggio painting the apostle struggles and suffers simultaneously. "The Crucifixion of St Peter," 1601, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome:

175

Sant’Ignazio di Loyola and the Galleria Doria-Pamphilj

176

Prior

to the Caravaggio digression we had just departed the French Church, San Luigi dei Francesi, and it was only a short walk to the Piazza di Sant‘Ignazio. This is a big early Baroque church squeezed into a little late Baroque square. The designer of the Piazza, Filippo Raguzzani, in 1727 has designed a stage set with the church of Sant‘Ignazio (which was completed a century earlier, but not by Raguzzani) serving as its centrepiece. He surrounded the Piazza with plebeian apartment houses, not aristocrat town palaces, but gracefully interlocked them with the skills of a master set designer. Viewed from the steps of the church the five buildings and six streets of the Piazza combined to make 11 onstage exits and entrances. At any moment, it seems, the performance will begin, with a cast of neighbourhood characters entering stage right out of doorways and declaiming out of windows. The church's facade (designed by Allessandro Algardi) is another of Rome's many variations on the Gesù. Sant' Ignazio di Loyola a Campo Marzio, its full and proper name, is also, like the Gesù, dedicated to the founder of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. Following the death and rapid 177

canonisation of Ignatius, the Papacy felt a burning, counter- reformative need to erect a church dedicated to him and to the Society. Construction began in 1626 and was completed in 1650. Funds were provided by Pope Gregory XV‘s "nephew," Ludovici Ludovisi. If the Piazza is a stage set, the interior of the church is a theatrical blaze of painterly glory that is one of the summits of monumental Baroque art. Large, open chapels line both sides of the nave and each chapel has its own dome as well as wide open sides that encourage you to walk directly from chapel to chapel without re-entering the nave. Each chapel has its share of remarkable frescoes and statues that pour out of frames, disregarding preBaroque conventions. The tomb of St Aloysius Gonzaga, a wealthy Jesuit novice who died at the age of 23, is found

in his Chapel. The young man, who was himself canonised, is interred in an urn of lapis lazuli, the most valuable rock of its time. His altar was designed by the Jesuit artist, Brother Andrea Pozzo. Brother Pozzo has also supplied a false painted dome over the crossing of the nave and transept which is remarkably artful in its illusionism. It was 178

an excellent alternative to an actual dome, which was far more expensive. It is best viewed from a circular marker set into the floor where the deception is most profound. Trompe l‘oeil (French for "to deceive the eye") is often derided as a mere artistic stunt. But in art, and for unprofessional viewers, it is one of the most engaging tricks of all. When I first saw it I had forgotten that it was a painted false dome and told Randi that it seemed awfully dark inside. Idiot. The church did pay for and construct a wooden model for the dome that was never built but, if it had been, it would simply have been "just another dome" on "just another church" instead of a memorable artifice. Despite all these goodies the highlight of the church of St Ignacio is another of Brother Pozzo's elaborate deceptions. He has given us a vast, vertiginous ceiling fresco that, if viewed from a circular ochre marker set into the nave floor, would amuse and astonish you with an encyclopaedia of all the tricks of the point of view trade. Representing St Ignatius‘s ascent into paradise, Pozzo‘s sweeping vision engulfs the entire nave ceiling. Its painted columns and arches grow straight out of the real columns below, seemingly opening the roof of the church to the sky, where all of heaven seems to have turned out in welcome. Bodies tumble out of the frame threatening to land on those below. Architecturally, the baroque swing of the pendulum away from the Renaissance values of structural clarity and balance here reaches its farthest extreme, for the aim of the ceiling is nothing less than to deny its own existence. The vault, painted in 1685, is an enormous work, a canvas 70 m wide. Randi and I were distressed to ascertain that the concept of placing a large mirror on the floor to allow you to leisurely examine a ceiling fresco without injuring your neck, had not yet found its way to St Ignatius‘s church. Randi and I, easily impressed and amused by excessive baroque artistic manoeuvrings, found the vault to be perhaps the most memorable vault fresco of our visit. We both had painful necks and shoulders for the rest of the day but regretted not a second of our craning. 179

180

For our last stop before lunch we chose, not a church, but a Palazzo that has become a Museum. Some of you who actually read and retain these things may recall that the Piazza Navona‘s redesign, including Borromini's church and Bernini 's fountain, was initiated and paid for by the family of Pope Innocent X, born Giovanni Battista Pamphilj (alternatively spelled as "Pamphili‖), whose family Palazzo was on the square. The Doria-Pamphilj‘s were an enormously wealthy family of Genoese extraction, even before the Papacy exponentially augmented their fortune. But not the same Palazzo. While the digs on the Piazza Navona would adequately suit my housing needs the family felt the need for a bit more room. In 1763 Pope Clement XIII granted to Prince Giovanni Andrea IV Doria (1705-64) the surname, the insignia and the properties of the Pamphilj, on account of the relationship acquired by way of the marriage between Giovanni Andrea III Doria (1653- 1737) and Anna Pamphilj. Thus endeth the quarrels among the Borghese, Colonna and Doria families for the succession to Girolamo Pamphilj, who died in 1760 without male issue. Therefore, in addition to combining the wealth of the families, their names were also joined and hyphenated. The heirs still reside here, in some ease. The Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj for the combined families was built during the first part of the 18th century by the last non-hyphenated Pamphilj. It is located on what is now a busy and noisy street, the Via del Corso, and its facade may well be the filthiest of all those in Rome that require whitewashing. The facade, when compared to the much earlier Palazzo Farnese, shows how little Roman Palazzo design changed over the course of 300 years. It is organised as a series of horizontals laid on top of one another without interaction. The bottom floor is the heaviest and the upper stories decrease in visual weight as they ascend. Each window, no matter how elaborate its decoration, remains isolated from its neighbour and the rows of windows are arrayed with military precision. It proves once again that the Palazzo Farnese was so forceful in its plan and execution that Roman Palazzo design never fully emerged from its shadow. That being said, Gabriele Valvassori‘s decoration for this

181

Palazzo is about as uninhibited as Roman palazzi embellishment ever got. Which is not terribly much. The family heads included several who spent some of their ill-gotten gains amassing works of art and finding ways to exhibit them to their righteous friends. We did not find the entrance to what is one of the largest private art collections in Italy open to the public on the Via del Corso and, this being Rome, signage was non-existent so we did what we always did, we walked around the block to the Piazza Collegio Romano to the back entrance, which was as uninviting as the front but it did contain a doorway that was open. By the way, the Collegio Romano‘s exterior was far more attractive than the Palazzo but as it did not hold paintings by Velazquez or busts by Bernini we didn't test their entrance. Typical of museums in Rome the Galleria‘s hallways, rooms, ceilings, and walls are as striking and as remarkable as the works of art they contain. I think we first noticed this at the Uffizi in Florence in 1979; despite the presence of a Botticelli or two or three in an adjacent room, the magnificence of the hallway kept us outside for a few minutes. The Palazzo's Hall of Mirrors is pictured below:

The usual embarrassment of riches is present: Mantengna, Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Tintoretto, Peter Bruegel, Carracci, and Caravaggio among them. But all museums have their superstars: the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, The Birth of Venus at the Uffizi, The Night Watch at the Rijksmuseum, the Sistine at the Vatican, and so on. At the Galleria Doria182

Pamphilj it is the room that contains both a portrait of Pope Innocent X Pamphilj by Velazquez and a bust of Pope Innocent X Pamphilj by Bernini. All roads lead to that corner space. Oddly, neither the location nor the room itself are particularly ornate or imposing. Content is all. Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (1599-1660) is perhaps the greatest artist Spain has yet produced and was the court painter to King Felipe IV. He visited Italy twice. In 1629 his visit was essentially unremarked upon and little is known of his activities or influences. His return twenty years later was quite different in that his fame and genius were by then universally recognised and much has been written about this two year working vacation in Milan, Venice, Rome, and Naples. A contemporary described Pope Innocent X as "…tall in stature, thin, choleric, splenetic, with a red face, bald in front with thick eyebrows bent above the nose ... that revealed his severity and harshness…." The Pope was universally considered, at least behind his back and in whispered tones, to be ―the most repugnant... of all the Fisherman's successors‖ with a face that ―was the most deformed ever born among men.‖ And yet this ugly and sullen man was paradoxically the subject of one of the most admired portraits of the seventeenth century, and perhaps of all time. Pope Innocent, aged seventyfive at the time, was a man of remarkable vigour, with a great capacity for work and a hot and violent temper. In the painting he wears the white liturgical under-vestment known as an alb, a biretta, and a red cape to which subdued highlights lend a sheen suggesting the texture of fabric. The Pope is seated in a red armchair, which is picked out from the opulent red of the curtain behind it by its gilded ornamentation. In the strong, almost rustic features of the 183

Pope's reddened face with its fleshy cheeks, the critically keen suspicious eyes strike a note of lively intelligence. The fascinating nature of a man aware of his own power is wonderfully expressed in the contrast between the face and the fine nervous hands, which convey the sensitivity of this powerful figure. The portrait of Pope Innocent X is by common consent one of the world's supreme masterpieces of portraiture, unsurpassed in its breathtaking handling of paint. Apparently the Pope was not at first very enthusiastic about his portrait, describing it as troppo vero, "too real." However, we are told that it eventually won his endorsement, and he presented the Spanish painter with a valuable gold chain. Velázquez himself must presumably have been very pleased with the portrait, or he would not have taken a replica back to Spain with him. His artist colleagues certainly praised it, and many copies of the work were made. Adjacent to this troppo vero portrait is a marble bust of the same man by Bernini, although this is more in line with a tactful "official portrait" sort of work. Innocent X was the last Pope to be portrayed by Bernini's own hand. His bust presents him as a resolute man of character and determination, his unattractive features generalised and ennobled. Bernini was quoted as saying that realistic portraiture consists wholly in perceiving a unique quality in each person, but one must choose a beautiful and not an ugly feature. His aim was not for a likeness touching on our common human condition but for an image worthy of the man's great office. Randi noticed, well before I did, that all the windows of the Galleria Doria-Pamphilj were wide open to the humid Roman 36° air. Since most major museums of our acquaintance have elaborate temperature controls and gauges to constantly check it, we wondered why the family/owners of this magnificent collection were so blasé about the conditions within which their Titians and Raphaels were residing. We never did find out.

184

It has been another busy, but hardly frenetic, morning and it was time to head back to the Palazzo Olivia for lunch. We passed once again the Palazzo Madama, the home of the Italian Senate, and were once again struck by the guards‘ heavy weaponry. On this occasion we were just in time for the Changing of the Guard which, while a pale imitation of the goings-on at Buckingham Palace, was still an impressive ceremony in which besworded, very tall soldiers in very fancy uniforms (the heat must have been ferocious) and silly hats did some impressive high stepping with nononsense facial expressions. I am hardly militaristic but the precision of these sorts of things has always been entertaining to watch. But the guards must be bored and miserable. We picked up groceries at #119 Governo Vecchio and Paninis at #88 and then took the elevator up to our apartment for food, rest, and naps.

En Route to Santa Maria della Vittoria’s Cornaro Chapel Having been fed and napped we headed off to find one of our four or five "must see" priorities: the Cornaro Chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. It is on the Quirinal Hill which is near the Hotel Sonya where we stayed in 2007 but across town from the Palazzo Olivia. On the way we passed many fabulous sights but spared only a few minutes of examination for each as we were unsure as to when the church would close for the evening. We sped by the Palazzo di Montecitorio, the home of Italy's House of Representatives and where the appalling Berlusconi runs the show. Next was the Palazzo Chigi, built for the Cardinal-filled (plus Pope Clement VIII) Aldobrandini family in the 16th century but sold in 1659 to the immensely wealthy Chigi family who, like all immensely wealthy families of the Renaissance and Baroque, sported at least one Pope, in this case 185

Alexander VII. The Palazzo Chigi is, like so many palazzi, based on the Farnese model of tedious regularity and weightiness. It is one of the three imposing palazzi from three different centuries on three sides of the Piazza Colonna which, even with its remarkable centrepiece column and a fine fountain, still manages to be somewhat lacklustre. It had once been one of the most vital Piazzi in Rome and received a great deal of effort and money from Pope Alexander but, unlike Pope Innocent‘s efforts in the Piazza Navona, it never succeeded in maintaining its status among Rome's Piazzi. That being said, the Column of Marcus Aurelius somewhat salvages the reputation of the Piazza Colonna. It was constructed shortly after Marcus Aurelius's death in 180 A.D. by his psychotic son and successor Commodus in frank imitation of the Column of Trajan which was erected near the Forum some seventy years earlier. Like its predecessor, the column celebrates military victories, in this instance the Emperor's campaigns against the German tribes north of the Danube, and because it had the good fortune to be owned during the Middle Ages by the monks of a nearby church (who found it beneficial because they charged ruinous admission fees to pilgrims and tourists who wished to climb to the top) it managed to survive without being melted down. Its reliefs are actually easier to read than those on Trajan's Column because they are more deeply incised but the variety of historical detail that gives the earlier column its greater fame and academic utility is weaker. Like most obelisks and columns in Rome the church has long ago replaced its historical cap with a statue of St Peter who had nothing to do with its building or tale.

186

The fountain in the Piazza Colonna was erected in 1577 by della Porta and there is a family resemblance to its contemporaries that were built around the same time to take the water from the Acqua Vergine to some of the more popular Piazzi of the city. It, like so many other fountains in Rome, is now surrounded by car parks and its bubbling sound muffled by the heavy traffic on nearby Corso. It has a huge but graceful basin of Porta Santa marble and 16 beautiful lions‘ heads beneath its rim that were added in the 17th century. Like many other children of the Acqua Vergine it is a low pressure fountain fed by a fat bubbling jet of water that springs from a central decoration shaped like a small marble pedestal table which rises in the centre of the main basin. The flow is designed so that the water streams over the edge of the table in a veil like a cloth of the finest and most transparent silk. Two curious objects resembling cannonballs rise at water level to keep the water agitated and to provide an effect of waves. Until 1900 the fountain was almost invisible beneath the blue and white striped tents of lemonade sellers who, as a guarantee of purity, would use its Acqua Vergine water to mix their brews. We turned East on to another major drag, the Via dei Tritone, to the Piazza Barberini which of course has its Palazzo Barberini (an immensely wealthy family who produced 187

numerous Cardinals and Pope Urban VII) and its fountain. The Barberinis were a Florentine family and were very successful grain, wool and textile merchants who migrated to Rome in the early 16th century. They prospered wildly amassing fortunes and purchasing titles and church offices. Their prosperity was guaranteed and expanded when Maffeo Barberini was elected Pope in 1623. The Palazzo Barberini was one of the first significant 17th century palazzi that emphatically rejected the tradition of monotonous regularity established by the Palazzo Farnese. With its arcade entrance facade set between embracing wings it offers a more civilised and enticing welcome than any other Palazzo of its era. The innovative design was likely due to its location. When it was first constructed (by Carlo Maderno in 1625) the Palazzo stood at the edge of the inhabited city and its surrounding open fields made the site more suitable for a suburban villa than an urban Palazzo. The facade's three tiers of arches derive from that most famous of classical models, the Colosseum. This was the

188

first Palazzo design in which stacked arcades were on the outside facing the street. Today, the Palazzo is home to the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica, a national Museum of mostly Baroque painting. It contains works by the usual suspects but its finest achievement is original to the Palazzo: Pietro da Cortona‘s neck breaking ceiling fresco of "The Triumph of Divine Providence and the Accomplishment of Its End through the Pontificate of the Urban VIII Barberini." It was paid for by the Barberini family so therefore leans towards an uncritical temperament. The major thoroughfare leading to the Piazza Barberini is not named after the family, but rather after the Greek God Triton, the son of Poseidon and messenger of the sea. And that street name, Via dei Tritone, derives from Bernini's brilliant fountain, La Fontana di Tritone that is nowadays wretchedly and entirely surrounded by incessant

and raucous traffic. Bernini‘s Triton is larger than life, seated upon the opening hinge of a scallop shell, with a conch shell to his lips from which a tall jet of Acqua Felice shoots into the air, to return upon itself and to drench his muscular torso. The shell upon which he is seated is supported by four dolphins whose open mouths receive the water from a lower pool. As in all commissions, large and small, paid for by the Barberinis we will find 189

bees (the symbol of the family) carved in prominent and visible places. In the rather mediocre Museum of Rome (located in the Palazzo Braschi which we visited towards the end of our visit) you can see an 1845 print of the Triton fountain presiding over a simple countrified scene. It is now advisable to rise very early in the morning so that you can have some tranquil time with the messenger of the sea before he is hemmed in by the turmoil of endless traffic. Still another victim of the traffic in the Piazza Barberini is Bernini's Fountain of the Bees. It was completed in 1644 and placed on a corner of the Via Sistina on the opposite side of the Piazza Barberini where it was set against the wall of a house. In 1887 the Piazza had become crowded with coaches and carriages requiring that the fountain be removed so that it would no longer be an obstacle to traffic. Like La Terrina (which we visited at the start of our journey) it then disappeared from history, for 32 years in this instance. Then, in 1919, it suddenly reappeared elsewhere in the characteristic manner of vanished Roman monuments and was connected with the Acqua Pia Marcia. Both the Barberini family and Napoleon were devoted heraldically to bees. Three bees displayed on an azure field made up the family's Coat of Arms. Pope Urban's bees are to be found in Rome wherever Bernini has erected a monument for his great patron. Had the Pope been longer lived and reigned beyond the 20 years allotted to him no doubt these insects would have swarmed all over the city. They reside happily in many unexpected places, perhaps most numerically and significantly on Bernini‘s baldacchino in St Peter‘s. 190

The idea of a bee fountain occurred to Bernini when he was in his twenties and when he shared this concept with Pope Urban two decades later the pontiff was naturally delighted and told him to go to it. What he produced was an unusual little fountain now found at the beginning of the Via Veneto as it curves away northward from the Piazza Barberini. Bernini has placed the three Barberini bees on the edge of the pool where they are expelling the water in three thin jets which fall into the basin beneath them. They are settled in the hinge of a huge fan-shaped shell which carries a pontifical inscription to the effect that the fountain was erected in 1644, the year, as it happened, of Urban's death. It is a masterly exercise in the execution of what many would consider a farcical theme. It is found in the middle of a sidewalk surrounded by shops, pedestrians, and traffic. Like its older brother, the Triton, this fountain is worth seeing despite its wretched setting. We are finally approaching Santa Maria della Vittoria and its Cornaro Chapel and therefore the end of this submission.

191