Table of Contents The Cornaro Chapel: Bernini's Masterpiece of Baroque Stagecraft ............................... 2 Wandering around the Quirinal in the Late Afternoon................................................. 8 The Endless Wednesday Finally Ends: The Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain ........ 14 Digression #3-a: Bernini, the Master of the Roman Baroque: the Borghese Years. ...................................................................................................................... 24 Digression #3-b: Bernini and Barberini ................................................................. 30 Digression #3-c: Bernini’s Later Years ................................................................. 37 The Necropolis Beneath St Peter's Cathedral .......................................................... 45 Giovedì, 15 luglio .................................................................................................... 45 A Pope, His Tomb, and the German Monk .............................................................. 52 The Piazza Colonna, a Bad Meal, and a Very Good Surprise ...................................... 59 Venerdì, 16 luglio ................................................................................................... 68 San Clemente and the Caelian Hill......................................................................... 68 Santa Pudenziana and Santa Maria Maggiore but not Santa Prassede ........................ 79 Sabato, 17 luglio ..................................................................................................... 89 The Galleria Borghese and the Elusive #116 Bus .................................................... 89 Our Thing ........................................................................................................ 100 Domenica, 18 luglio .............................................................................................. 109 Piazza della Repubblica ...................................................................................... 109 Francisco Borromini and a Return to Noantri ........................................................ 118 Lunedì, 19 luglio ................................................................................................... 126 Villa Farnesina .................................................................................................. 126 The Forum Boarium........................................................................................... 135 Teatro di Marcello ............................................................................................. 143 The Ponte and the Castel Sant’Angelo ................................................................. 150 Digression #4: The Sack of Rome: Who Were the Real Barbarians? ................ 158 Martedì, 20 luglio .................................................................................................. 166 Rome's largest Piazza: the Piazza del Popolo ........................................................ 166 A Tale of Two Adjacent Augustinian Memorials ..................................................... 174 And the Hours Dwindle down to a Precious Few .................................................... 183 Mercoledì, 21 luglio .............................................................................................. 193 The Last Day .................................................................................................... 193 Giovedi, 22 July .................................................................................................... 198 1

Roma is Amor Spelled Backward ......................................................................... 198

The Cornaro Chapel: Bernini's Masterpiece of Baroque Stagecraft Last week I sent Volume 1, in PDF format, to the local office supply store for colour laser printing and now have 191 pages, every one of them absolutely essential, placed in protective plastic and into a nice three ring binder that Zachary had bought me for Christmas last year. My current state of wordiness will result in a two volume opus for the first time. Fortunately, I do not anticipate returning to Rome next year so the current bout of logorrhea will not be repeated. Some of you may be channelling Emperor Joseph II and thinking that there are "simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect." And yet, like Mozart, I would respond to you that these are precisely the number of words that I require, no more, no less. While I do not routinely compare myself to Mozart, nor have others made the choice to do so, I firmly believe that one's reach should excessively exceed one's grasp. We had finally reached our destination, the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. It was originally begun in 1603 with construction supervised by the Carmelite Friars, designed by Carlo Maderno, and paid for by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, "nephew" to the Pope Paul V. Originally named after a previous Chapel on the site, San Paolo, its name was changed to honour the Blessed Virgin after the victory at the battle of White Mountain in Bohemia. The facade was designed by Giovanni Battista Soria in 1626, based on Maderno’s facade on the nearby (and next stop this afternoon) Santa Susanna. As eager as we were to climb those entrance stairs and view the interior, which is why we came all this way, we briefly walked around the corner to the Piazza San Bernardo to view the most ridiculed fountain in Rome, the Fountain of Moses. Its failure is multiplied because it is one of those "mostra‖ fountains that serve as the primary recipient of an aqueduct’s water, in this instance the Acqua Felice of Pope Sixtus V.

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It was constructed in 1587 and most famously contains a statue of Moses that is squat, ungainly, and ludicrously draped in a toga. It has provided a great deal of amusement for generations. Each coach load of visiting tourists is told the story, probably apocryphal but quite in character, that the sculptor, Prospero Antichi, hearing the burst of laughter which greeted his work when first unveiled, fell into melancholy and committed suicide. It is true that the poor man begged to be allowed to correct the proportions which he had so badly miscalculated, but the fierce old Pope, Sixtus V, refused to allow him to touch the statue, saying that it must remain forever as a monument to his competence. In truth, the statue could not be put right by any known method and would defy any attempted correction. Only total demolition would have improved the situation. Focusing on Antichi’s sculptural folly robs the

busload of tourists of the opportunity to admire the magnificence of the rest of the fountain, the work of the brilliant Domenico Fontana. The two angels who stand on the summit holding the Pope's coat of arms, the rampaging lion, and the perfect travertine balustrade that surrounds it at ground level are all worthy additions to the Roman artscape. Four Egyptian lions were originally installed here, with little pipes in their mouths, to expertly expel four fine arcs of water into the basin but they are now resting comfortably in the Vatican museums, replaced by Pope Gregory XVI in the 1840s with copies. In designing the fountain Fontana revived the Roman idea of an archway through which the water of the new aqueduct, like the victorious army, gushed out for all to see and 3

admire. Not only was it the first terminal mostra (or castellum) of a new aqueduct to be seen in Rome since the time of the Caesars it was to influence the future designs of many to come, including the fabulous Trevi. Unfortunately, the rustic scene which it once invaded has now become one of the most crowded crossways in Rome. On top of that, the inevitable scaffolding has cut off Moses at the waist so our anticipated chuckle at the sight was likewise half cut off. The interior of Santa Maria della Vittoria was entirely decorated during the Baroque era and the result is another riot of gilded luxury that snobby architectural critics detest but that we adore. It resembles Maderno’s earlier work at the Sant’Andrea della Valle, despite significant damage during a fire of 1833. Perhaps we had become too accustomed to Baroque ostentation of design during the first few days of this visit but we hurried through the nave to get to the last Chapel on the left of the short transept where we found the Cornaro Chapel. Cardinal Federico Cornaro belonged to one of the richest families of Venice. He acquired the Chapel rights in 1647 and commissioned (who else?) Bernini to provide it with a suitable setting for his final resting place. Money was no object for a Cardinal and he was able to provide enough of it to require Bernini himself to personally sculpt the contents in addition to designing the surrounding architecture and decoration down to the smallest detail of exquisitely veined marble. This combination of infinite funds and infinite genius has resulted in not only what Bernini considered his finest accomplishment but perhaps the greatest example of Baroque stagecraft in the world. While art historians have been consistently appreciative in their responses to The Ecstasy of Santa Teresa, there is the occasional Grundyism, especially during the Victorian era, complaining of the extremely poor taste of Bernini’s design, laying a charge of severe prurience upon the sculptor. One said, "If that is divine love, I know it well."

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Bernini, always an extremely devout man, always held that he depicted St Teresa's ecstasy exactly as she herself had described it (rated R): "Beside me, on the left hand, appeared an Angel in bodily form. In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he pulled it out, I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one's soul then content with anything but God." Bernini took the greatest possible pains in designing its setting. He placed the sculpture within an architectural frame of double columns, entablature, and pediment that merges with the chapel’s altar below. The pediment is broken and curved and the entablature design is repeated on the walls of the Chapel, all of which give the impression that the back wall has suddenly opened like a parted curtain to reveal the sculpture behind.

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The theatrical effect is further heightened by the light that streams down on the scene from a window concealed behind the pediment. More light enters through the chapel’s open window illuminating the ceiling on which sculpted and painted angels push aside clouds to reveal the radiant Holy Dove. On the Chapel floor sinister marble skeletons, intimations of earthly death, are inlaid into the pavement. Bernini was a well-known and successful stage designer (Jack of all trades, Master of all) and even provided the Cardinal with an audience for his show. On the side walls of the Chapel, occupying architectural niches carved to resemble Opera boxes, sit sculpted members of the sponsoring Cornaro family who, like us, are observing and discussing the miracle before them. Bernini has here fashioned a Baroque conceit of prodigious virtuosity. Through a seamless fusion of sculpture, painting, and architecture he depicts and explores the three levels of Christian reality (heaven, earth, purgatory) and the three levels of Christian spirituality (God, the saint, and ordinary man). And by providing the members of the of the Cornaro family with positions and postures effectively identical to our own, the viewers, he invests the conceit with an immediacy that reaches out to envelop us with unprecedented power. Absolutely spectacular!

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Wandering around the Quirinal in the Late Afternoon We had spent perhaps a bit too much time marvelling at Bernini's Cornaro Chapel and it was approaching bedtime for all good little churches in Rome. Because the church of Santa Susanna was just across the street we made it our next major destination for this afternoon's busy itinerary. My pretrip research had found this church mentioned every now and then but it wouldn't have been one of our priorities; its proximity to Santa Maria della Vitoria was its main selling point and we were therefore sold on it. Chiesa de Santa Susanna alle Terme di Dioclenziano is the national church of the United States in Rome and has been since 1924. Ultimately, this means that its lead Cardinal is American and masses can be heard in English. The current titular is Bernard Francis Cardinal Law. He was placed here by the Vatican in 2003 following his resignation as Archbishop of Boston. It was the usual story: he finally became aware of allegations of sexual abuse by priests within his archdiocese and followed the standard church protocol of thoroughly covering it up and then, when it finally came to light, took it on the lam and got out of town, his generous pay cheques safely in his pocket and silly Cardinal’s hat safely on his guilty head. Disgraceful! The first place of worship in this location on the Quirinal Hill was a very early parish church of the fourth century. In 590 it was renamed after Santa Susanna to reflect the growing reputation of this particular martyr. Beneath the present floor of the church are the ruins of a Roman house that was constructed about the year 280 AD. Living here were relatives of the General Gaius Aurelius Diocletian, who would become Emperor in 284. Like the Emperor, they were from Dalmatia or what is now modern Croatia. The family included four brothers. Caius, Gabinus, (Gabinus’s daughter, Susanna lived here also), Maximus, and Claudius, who were a part of the Roman government. In order to insure peace and stability, Diocletian adopted a form of government called tetrarchy, or divided rule of four. Diocletian ruled primarily in the east, and a joint Emperor, Maximian, another general who Diocletian had promoted, ruled in the west. In turn, each Emperor or ―Augustus‖ was to appoint a junior ruler or ―Caesar,‖ who had the right to succeed him. In the year 293, in order to guarantee Maxentius’s (named by Maximian to succeed him) succession, Diocletian prepared to marry this young general into his immediate family. Diocletian’s daughter, Valeria was married. The only unmarried young female in the family was Susanna, his cousin. So that spring Diocletian announced the engagement of Maxentius Galerius to Susanna. Susanna refused the marriage proposal. Her Christian father and uncle supported this decision and encouraged her to maintain her marriage to Christ. The pair of non-Christian brothers arrived to remind their niece that such a marriage would result in her becoming Empress someday but, this being a good Christian story, they wound up convinced to become Christians themselves.

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General Maxentius then personally came to the house, believing he could persuade Susanna to marry him. Susanna’s continued refusal soon led to the suspicion that she and other members of her family might be Christians. First class detective work indeed. Susanna refused the marriage proposal, not only because she was a Christian but, additionally, because she had taken a vow of virginity. When Diocletian on the eastern frontier learned of his cousin’s refusal and the reasons for it, he was deeply angered, and ordered her execution. A cohort of soldiers arrived at the house and beheaded her. Her father Gabinus was arrested and starved to death in prison. Maximus and Claudius, together with Claudius’s wife Prepedigna and their children, Alexander and Cuzia, were all subsequently martyred. Ironically the only survivor was the future Pope Caius, who had escaped and hid in the catacombs. In 1587 Pope Sixtus V gave the church and its adjacent building to the Cistercian nuns. Shortly afterwards it was rebuilt with funds from Cardinal Girolamo Ristucucci (his last name is kind of fun to say aloud) and the omnipresent Carlo Maderno was chosen to oversee construction. He completed the façade in 1603. His facade was epoch-making for its synthesis of antique elements at once bold and controlled. After more than a century of inconclusive experimentation by architect after architect, The Age of the Baroque was at hand. The transition from Renaissance to Mannerist to the new style (obviously accelerated by Il Gesù) was complete. Madero's design of the facade of Santa Susanna was also the first in Rome to incorporate the satellite buildings on 9

either side. Quite plain in design, the side buildings echo the church's facade details only at the top and bottom, thereby framing the church without competing with it.

While the Santa Maria della Vitoria facade across the street shows evidence of being influenced by Maderno's work at, the interiors of the two churches are quite different. Not only is Bernini's masterpiece missing from Santa Susanna there is but a single nave with only a circular apse forming two side chapels. The main objects of interest are the frescoes of the life of Susanna that were painted to resemble tapestries and which entirely cover the walls. Her death is dealt with by a painting of her execution by Tommaso Laureti behind the main altar. In sum, we have been indulged terribly by what we have seen since we have arrived and did not find Santa Susanna worthy of much exploration time despite the obvious fact that in most places this would be a prime, number one destination. It was certainly late now, probably too late for any other churches, but since we were in the area we took a chance that Borromini's brilliant San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane might be welcoming, but found it closed. It is a small church and placed on a corner where 10

two major thoroughfares cross and the sidewalks are extremely narrow so it was impossible to get a good look at even the facade, which is revolutionary. We did get back here later so I will postpone my acute analysis until another day. Stay tuned. In 2007 our hotel was nearby and we walked past San Carlo many a time that year but our focus was ground level for this is on the corner of the four fountains. This is a small urban amenity, courtesy of that brilliant town planner Sixtus V. These four buildingcorner fountains were planned in 1588 to mark the crossroads of what is now the Via del Quirinale and the Via XX Septembre (which becomes the Via delle Quattro Fontane at this spot). Instead, we get four well-intentioned but poorly maintained, situated, and grimy fountains. Over the years they have barely survived the rebuilding of the structures they were originally attached to. The grouping's overall theme is so esoteric that even Baroque scholars still argue over the meaning of its symbols. The fountains at the Southwest and Southeast corners represent the Tiber and the Nile while the others represent the goddesses Juno and Diana. Or not. The great Baroque scholar (and confessed Soviet spy) Anthony Blunt describes the problem thusly: The iconographical scheme is curious, with two rivers and two goddesses and it may have been originally planned with four rivers and changed later so as not to compete with Bernini's fountain in the Piazza Navona. It is even possible that the generally accepted identification of the goddess at the Northwest corner as Juno may not be correct as she is shown with a swan instead of her usual peacock…. Further, the figure in the Northeast fountain may be Night rather than Diana, since she holds poppies in her left hand. Pope Sixtus no doubt meant the grouping to focus attention on the centre of the crossroads with its ramrod-straight vistas shooting off to Michelangelo's city gate, the Porta Pia, to the east and the obelisks of the Esquiline, Quirinal, and Pincian Hills in all other directions. The available space, however, was too small to allow for a crossroads centrepiece, so today there is no place to stand amid the ever-present traffic. Still, should there be a momentary lull in the chaos, the views remain splendid. But be sure to keep your eye on the traffic.

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We continued along the street heading in the direction of the restaurant we so adored in 2007 where, should it still be found there, we would dine tonight. We passed the Ministry Of Defense, the Presidential Palace (the Palazzo del Quirinale) where Signor Berlusconi spends his dignified evenings with 17-year-old prostitutes, and Bernini's own small church up the block, Sant'Andrea al Quirinale which, to our surprise, we found still open for business this late in the afternoon or, more accurately, this early in the evening. This is perhaps the most elegant "neighbourhood church" in Rome with a facade that is, not perhaps, one of Bernini's most accomplished inventions. It was built between 1658 and 1661, replacing a parish church, and is the official church of novitiates of the Jesuit order. Pope Innocent X’s "nephew" Cardinal Camillo Pamphili commissioned Bernini to design it, always a prudent and judicious decision. It has been said that Bernini refused payment for designing the church and accepted instead only a daily donation of bread from the Jesuit oven. He considered it a perfect piece of work and who are we to contest that statement? With tremendous assurance Bernini introduced a round portico atop a cascade of steps and extended the overhang of the pediment to balance the projecting portico. He made the plain giant pilasters to turn the corners and gave them boldly clustered capitals. And then, with his usual irresistible showmanship, he set a rakishly tilted Pamphili coat

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of arms atop the portico. Finally, like the plume in Cyrano de Bergerac's hat, he gave the facade a crowning touch of inevitable panache. Inside, the walls are decorated with a richness of material and colour that makes the simple oval space all but glow. Moreover, and unlike so many other Roman Baroque interiors, this is no superficial show of glitter. As always with Bernini at his best the opulence serves a larger vision and the architectural elements here are but a subordinate consideration, the setting for the performance rather than the performance itself. That performance, the ascension of St Andrew, begins in the shallow apse and then expands to include the entire dome. The entire church, minuscule as it is, is a celebration of both religion and art. Of all his works this was his favourite and, no wonder, for it is probably the greatest synthesis of architecture, sculpture, and painting that the 17th century ever achieved. Both this church and Borromini's down the block (which we could not enter today) are teensy-weensy by comparison to what we have seen before. Both were set upon irregularly shaped lots of meagre size and the problems to be overcome were weighty. Either church could easily and entirely fit within just one of the four piers that hold up St Peter’s dome with sufficient room left over to provide an apartment fit for a Cardinal. Both required oval designs with nary a nave or transept in sight. Fortunately, both were designed by profound intelligence which could not only carry out the

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assignment successfully but would overcome the problematic locations to produce dazzling and revolutionary conceptions of church design.

The Endless Wednesday Finally Ends: The Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain I already have written forty-three pages about this relatively uneventful Wednesday in Rome and will wind up close to or over 50 with this final instalment. Rome is the Eternal City and my vanity travel drivel has become the Eternal Journal. It is now around 7:30 PM, not quite late enough for an Italian dinner. Spaniards eat at 10 PM while old farts in Florida eat at 4 PM. The dinner hour in Italy is between 8 and 10 PM. While many restaurants are open by seven and those in heavily touristed areas start serving at five or six it can be a very sad and lonely room indeed if you arrive before 8 PM. We're walking on the Via Sistina upon which rests "our" restaurant from 2007, La Fontanella Sistina. Those of you not yet affected by advancing Alzheimer's should remember the opening chapter of my endless (although, by comparison with this monster, it now appears to more resemble a digest) 2007 Roman Journal wherein I described my brilliant performance of "Old Shep," singing along with Elvis Presley while dining there. It is always risky to return to a happily remembered place, especially after several years during which rosy fantasies have plenty of time to prosper. But it is our intention to eat there tonight and to risk disappointment and disillusionment. However, it is at least an hour too early and so we walked right past it along the Via Sistina, which we had not done three years ago. In front of the Quirinal Palace we found the Monte Cavallo fountain of 1588. That great builder Pope, Sixtus V, was the second in his line to live at the Quirinal Palace and when he glanced out his bedroom window he saw a sight that had fascinated visitors and pilgrims for centuries. The marble statues of two prancing horses attended by two marble men on foot had been in position on the Quirinal Hill since classical days and were among the few works of art which had never been buried or concealed from view since the fall of Rome. They appeared in most of the mediaeval guide books and maps and were among the objects which every Pilgrim wished to see. They were then known simply as "the marble horses" and once stood at the entrance to the nearby Baths of Constantine.

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In order to build Sixtus V often also chose to destroy, stripping marble for his new constructions from classical (i.e., pagan) monuments that he had no use for. But he quite liked the horse tamers (often referred to as Castor and Pollux) and decided to make them perform as decorations for a new fountain. Unfortunately the twin brothers had the bad manners to have their backs turned to the Quirinal Palace. Domenico Fontana, the wonderfully named Master Genius of the Roman Fountain, turned them around and placed a fountain, with two basins and a jet, between them. It was 300 years before the fountain took the form which it possesses today. In 1785 an obelisk was dug out of the ground behind the church of San Rocco. It was the ancient companion of the obelisk which that same Sixtus had erected outside the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Scholars believe that both obelisks had probably stood together at the entrance to the tomb of Augustus. Pope Pius VI had the idea of linking the two detached statues by placing the obelisk between them. Still it was not complete. In 1818 (during the papacy of Pius VII) a giant granite basin was transported from the Forum to the Quirinal. This is another Roman relic that had survived the storms and stresses of the centuries in its original position, adjacent to the Arch of Septimius Severus. When it lost its statue in 1595 (Marforio the River god was relocated to Michelangelo's brand-new Campidoglio) it became little more than a drinking trough for cattle and horses. Thus the fountain of the Piazza del Quirinale is formed of three ancient monuments which have survived from the days of Imperial Rome. The Egyptian obelisk, the two marble groups, and the granite basin were familiar to the Romans of the Empire and now, by the apparently capricious chances which rule monument survival, have been granted a second life in another Rome. It was Shelley's favourite fountain and he wrote an extended description of it. As we walked along Via Sistina past the restaurant we were in unfamiliar territory although we knew we were heading generally towards the Spanish Steps. We were entirely unaware how close the Steps were and how quickly we would come upon them. And from what direction. An obelisk soon appeared in our view a few blocks away and I suddenly realised that that obelisk must be in front of the church of Trinità dei Monti which is located at the tippy top of those Spanish Steps. Just a few blocks past the restaurant.

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Along with the Trevi fountain and the Pantheon, the Scalinata di Spagna comprises the holy Trinity of Campius Martius tourist destinations. Cascading down the Pincian Hill in a torrential rush, the Spanish Steps epitomise that most fundamental of baroque principles: form is more than just function. The exuberant design turns what might have been an ordinary staircase into much, much more. Inspired form here expands function so that the steps serve not only as a land bridge between two levels of the city but also as a breathtaking set piece focus for the Piazza di Spagna below and an elegant formal approach to church of Trinità dei Monti above. While they are clearly steps, they have nothing to do with Spain. The nickname derives from the Piazza di Spagna at its base which derives its name from the Palazzo di Spagna which has, since 1622, been the residence of the Spanish ambassador to the Vatican. In fact, the staircase is entirely French in origin. In the 15th century the Minims, a French monastic order, assumed possession of the Villa at the top of the Pincian Hill and immediately began construction of a French church, Trinità dei Monti. The church was completed in 1570 and talk immediately began of a project to link the church with the Piazza below. Nothing was done until 1661 when a French diplomat died, bequeathing a good deal of money for the construction of a staircase. Initial plans called for Bernini to design an elaborate ramp around a life-size equestrian statue of Louis XIV but the Pope saw that as a threat to his political supremacy and the project was doomed. Finally in 1723 negotiations resulted in the little-known Francesco di Sanctis overachieving in his design that was completed three years later. Almost immediately the staircase became one of the acknowledged must-see sites of Rome. However, it did not go well for poor di Sanctis. In 1728 the steps were badly damaged by a rainstorm and the architect found himself the defendant in a messy, protracted lawsuit. He never received another commission and the staircase was not 16

repaired until 1737, six years after his death. Today, the Spanish Steps remain in excellent repair and energise the entire neighbourhood, now the city's most expensive and fashionable shopping quarter. They are the best spot in Rome for measuring the pulse of the great capital city. To sit at the top in the late afternoon on a sunny summer day is to be given a gods-eye view of Rome awakening from its siesta. As the sun begins to set the pace of life perceptibly quickens as shoppers and tourists begin to appear. Small groups coalesce into clusters, clusters grow to become crowds, and the crescendo of activities swells until the entire square is filled with a single, teeming throng. Among the unfortunate di Sanctis’s brilliant and unexpected accomplishments was to craftily skew the design to adjust for the fact that the axes of Trinità dei Monti and the Piazza di Spagna do not line up at all. We hadn’t noticed this because of the subtlety of his design and because, typically, we always had focused on the Roman wildlife sitting upon the steps. Now, we were above, and the problem was obvious, the solution brilliant. Approaching from below, as had been our previous experiences here, I had always found the 138 steps to the top to be a breathless undertaking so had never taken the trouble to climb them. Now we know a route which will get us there with much less effort. Steps less travelled by make all the difference. Among the pleasant surprises of standing above it all was the fine view we had of the fountain in the Piazza di Spagna, La Barcaccia (The Old Boat). From below it is difficult to get an overall feel for it because of the multitudes surrounding it, sitting on its edges. Bernini's father, Pietro, is probably responsible for the fountain although many believe he must have taken worthwhile advice from his young and far more talented son. It was placed here 100 years prior to the construction of the Spanish Steps and is mostly below ground level because of the weak water pressure of the Acqua Vergine. One story is that the fountain commemorates the 1598 flood when eighteen feet of water filled the Pantheon and a boat was cast up on the hillside which one day was to 17

become the Spanish Steps. Another story is that it symbolises the Ship of the Church as sailing the sea under the insignia of Pope Urban VIII. It is absolutely true that in previous centuries artists’ models would gather at the fountain waiting for someone to give them work. They adopted the poses for which they were noted (pious, simple, senile, roguish, sensual) and did their best to attract attention. The American sculptor W. W. Story wrote that, "Sometimes a group of artists, passing by, will pause and steadily examine one of these models, turn him about, pose him, point out his defects and excellencies, and pass on." The church at the top was closed so you will all be spared a description of its interior. Besides, it is its exterior, located as it is at the top of seventy-three billion photographs of the Spanish Steps, that interests us. Its full and correct name is Santissima Trinità al Monte Pincio (Holy Trinity at the Pincian Hill) and construction began in 1502 when King Louis XII of France wanted to celebrate his successful invasion of Naples in some eloquent manner. Construction began in a customarily French style with pointed late Gothic arches. Construction lagged, and a more conventionally Italian Renaissance church, with Carlo Maderno's facade, was finally consecrated in 1585 by the great urbaniser Pope Sixtus V, whose via Sistina connected the Piazza below with the Porta del Popolo, the main northern entrance to Rome. The Bourbon kings of France remained patrons of the church. During the Napoleonic occupation of Rome, the church, like many others in Rome, was despoiled of its artwork and decoration. After the Bourbon restoration of Louis XVIII, the looted artwork was returned, and the present facade was commissioned in 1816 from Carlo Francesco Mazois. In 1828, under an agreement worked out by Pope Leo XII and Charles X of France, the church and monastery were entrusted to the Order of the Dames du Sacre Coeur, a French religious order, under whose administration it remains today. 18

We didn't need to look at our watches; our stomachs were communicating very clearly about the current hour of the evening so we departed our lofty perch and headed back down the Via Sistina towards our 2007 restaurant. But first we had to pass by the famous celebrity hotel of Rome, the Hassler. It's the sort of place for an expense account or for Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel to stay (Tom Cruise once rented three floors for his wedding celebration to Robo Katie after their Scientology marriage) when they want to be sure the paparazzi know where they are. In short, not the sort of place for us little people. However, when I saw the doorman spinning the revolving doors so that precious guests wouldn't have to do so themselves, I saw an opportunity to live the high life for a few minutes. I walked in blithely and calmly as if I were there honestly and found a comfortable chair in the well-appointed if somewhat overstuffed lobby. The hotel, well-located adjacent to the top of the Spanish Steps, was built by the Swiss hotelier Alfred Hassler in 1893. There is an old plaque in the lobby with "Hassler New York" imprinted upon it but there never was a hotel with this name in New York; it was actually in Naples. There is also lettering above the door naming it "Hassler Villa Medici" but there is no relationship at all between the hotel and the Florentine family. This derives from Mussolini's desire to rid the hotel of its Germanic-sounding name in favour of something more Mediterranean. It is actually named, simply, "The Hassler" if such a luxurious and pompous hostelry can be considered at all unfussy. I sat for a few minutes emulating a paying guest but the magic of the moment soon passed and I rejoined Randi outside to complete our stroll to the restaurant, thanking the doorman for helping me exit without having to revolve my own door. She had spent her time monitoring the steady stream of high-end automobiles and limos depositing and withdrawing the hotel guests. La Fontanella Sistina was just as we remembered except there was no Elvis playing on the stereo and no Roberto (the owner) patrolling 19

the back room and constructing the salads. The service was excellent and the food flawless but we didn't have that "bonus" experience we shared three years ago. Still, I won't quibble with an excellent shared Insalata Caprese (again!), my cannelloni filled with ricotta and spinach, and Randi's superb baked lasagne. It was a fair trade-off as we had broken one of our Cardinal rules which is to eat all of our meals outdoors but it was homey and relaxed. Just before we left Roberto appeared but was unable to recall us from three years ago. Of

course.

After dinner we headed for home, turning west on the Via Tritone and soon noticed an extremely rare street sign with helpful tourist information that informed us that the Trevi fountain was just around a corner. So, naturally, we turned a corner and found ourselves in one of the least impressive Roman piazzas staring at masses of people staring at one of the most impressive Roman fontanas. The fountain’s history dates back some 2000 years. In 19 B.C. Rome celebrated the opening of the aqueduct known as the Aqua Vergo which was constructed by Augustus's best friend and supporter, the consul Marcus Agrippa (an extraordinarily capable man who was primarily responsible for the early success of Rome's water distribution system, as well as Augustus’s chief military general). Its purpose was to supply water to the newly completed complex of buildings on the Campius Martius. Agrippa constructed a fountain in this Piazza di Trevi which became the principal gathering spot of Rome's water carriers who sold the aqueduct waters throughout the entire city.

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The origin of the name "Trevi" is not known with certainty. But there is archaeological evidence suggesting that three of the seven streets that currently converge on the fountain were part of the Roman street layout of ancient times. Such a triple convergence was known in Latin as a "trivium" and the fountains name may well derive from the Italian equivalent, ―tre vie,‖ or "three streets." The extraordinary fountain that exists today dates from 1730 when the newly elected Pope Clement XII decided to rebuild the fountain already in place in the Piazza. It was an early example of bureaucratic sloth: an elaborate architectural competition was the mechanism for obtaining a design and at least thirty different proposals were exhibited in the nearby Quirinal Palace. The complicated judging process dragged on for more than two years. In the end the winner was Nicola Salvi and his ambitious design was probably chosen because it addressed, with particular skill, a very particular problem. In the previous decade the orders of the nearby Palazzo Poli had purchased and demolished the buildings to either side of the existing fountain and had replaced them with a new and distinctly unremarkable addition to their Palazzo that flanked the fountain with identical wings. Salvi’s winning proposal included constructing a second and false front as can be seen at either corner of the Palazzo thereby incorporating the pre-existing building into the composition.

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So celebrated has the Trevi become that is equivalent to a cliché and is one heck of a tourist trap, surrounded by chain store gelato shops and cheap plastic tchotchke dispensaries. But even the tour guides with their colourcoded umbrellas and canned lectures cannot kill it. Like Rome itself the Trevi fountain is indomitable: a boisterous tour de force of inundated rocks, trees, gods,

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horses, and Tritons, all bursting forth from a Baroque triumphal arch that does double duty as backdrop for the fountain and centrepiece for the Palazzo facade behind. The whole thing teeters precariously on the edge of pomposity but is rescued by its tiny Piazza. Paris and its Haussmann would have given it a grand boulevard approach but Rome leaves it tucked away in a maze of streets as if it were just another neighbourhood civility. The tourists may be swooning and the junk men may be selling, but the city itself has taken it in stride and that saves the day. The fountain’s iconography relates, as might be expected, entirely to water. The central figure of Oceanus (god of water in all its forms) rides an oyster-shell chariot drawn by two unruly and winged and fishtailed horses; the horses are attended by two Tritons who announce Oceanus’s arrival through conch-shell trumpets. In the niches to either side female figures personify Fertility (on the left) and Health (on the right). The bas reliefs above these two figures illustrate the ancient history of the Trevi waters. Across the attic of the triumphal arch four more figures symbolise the benefits of water. All of these are straightforward enough and in general quite usual. Far more engaging - and less expected -- are the small, easily overlooked sculptural touches that amplify the iconographical theme. Scattered among the fountain rocks is a wealth of sculpted plant life. An oak tree, fig tree, grapevine, acanthus plant, marigold, and prickly pear cactus are just some of the thirty species of flora represented. Look closely and you will find a sculpted snail or a lizard out for a feed or a sun bath. The power of water to also destroy is acknowledged with some wit: on the right-hand Palazzo wing the base of the outermost pilaster seems to crack and crumble, splitting into pieces as it returns to its natural state and falls away onto the rocks below. The Trevi fountain is an astonishing achievement. No one is more prepared than I to fire away at hackneyed tourist traps, especially when they are overcrowded, noisy, and fairly dirty. However I have found it impossible to confront the Trevi with mouth unopened or to think anything of it but unalloyed admiration for what is an entirely satisfying experience. There is a tradition going back a couple of hundred years that if you turn your back on the fountain and toss a coin over your left shoulder into the quite large target (impossible to miss) you will return to Rome some day. An eminent fountain deserves a great number of silly legends: girls whose lovers leave Rome for military service or work, are guaranteed eternal love if they make their boyfriends drink a glass of water from the fountain, then subsequently break the glass. The small fountain to the side of the main fountain is called the ―Fontanina degli Innamorati‖ (the lovers’ fountain) and those couples who drink together from it will be faithful for life. While there are regular attempts to steal the coins from the bottom of the fountain, I am 23

pleased to inform you that the coins are collected every night and the salvaged money has been used to fund a supermarket that serves the poor of Rome, the Italian Red Cross, as well as other local charities. And we’re not talking chump change, either – city workers routinely pull roughly €3,000 per day out of the Trevi. It has been a long day with much activity but we still managed to make some time to go to the neighbourhood gelateria, Il Frigidarium, making our way past the crowds on line, even at this late hour, for an outdoor table at the massively popular Pizzeria, Da Buffetto. To prove that we are not entirely creatures of habit we change up our flavour choice: a combination of pistachio and After Eight mint puts a fine cap on the day.

Digression #3-a: Borghese Years.

Bernini, the Master of the Roman Baroque: the

These digressions necessarily interrupt the chronological flow but seem necessary as a surrogate for extended discussions of significant areas when they arise during a particular visit. In general they should be able to, in one coherent chapter, provide sufficient information about a particular place or person in such an organised fashion as to make more sense. Bernini is simply the most essential individual in the history of Roman art and architecture and his work is literally everywhere. His importance and breadth are, unfortunately, so critical and so comprehensive that it will take at least three digressive chapters to document. This is the first and will cover his early years until the death of the Borghese Pope, Paul V. The second will focus on his remarkable and unique partnership with the Barberini Pope, Urban VIII. The final digression on Bernini will cover his later years. I accept it as a just criticism that when we visited Rome in 2007 I had barely heard of Bernini. I recognised his name as some sort of artist and sculptor but could not have placed his flourishing within seventyfive years. After running across his name on abundant occasions that June it eventually dawned on me that this guy was actually pretty good and actually pretty important. So in the months leading up to this July I read up on the artist and we made a point of seeking out locations where we would run across some of his more astonishing work. He is well worth a digression -- or three -- and will now receive his first. Bernini was one of those rare prodigies who continued to grow in artistic stature well after he reached maturity. Like Mozart a century and a half later, he added the highest degree of intelligence and profound emotional insight to his innate 24

virtuosity. It is this seemingly easy combination that set these men apart from lesser artists of their times. Bernini's contemporaries found him remarkable because he so obviously fulfilled the creative ideals of their time. Unlike Leonardo and Michelangelo, the central Italian artists to whom he is most plausibly compared, Bernini was a completely realised person perfectly in step with his time. Bernini was the greatest exponent of triumphant Catholicism in the period following the Counterreformation. His personal qualities made him both a favourite and a leader: he served eight popes, several monarchs, and countless Cardinals and Princes with almost uninterrupted success. His capacity for work matched his virtuosity; when even he could not keep up with the commissions, his executive abilities so transformed the lesser talents of his students and assistants that work from his shop invariably bears the unmistakable stamp of his genius. Gianlorenzo Bernini was born in Naples on 7 December, 1598. His father Pietro (1562-1629) was a minor Florentine sculptor of some ability who was attracted to the court of Naples in the last decades of the 16th century. In Naples he married a local girl, Angelica Galante, fathered Gianlorenzo, and produced works that are fundamentally forgotten. In 1605 a young and ambitious Cardinal, Camillo Borghese, assumed the papal throne as Paul V. During the sixteen years of his papacy he completed St Peters, enlarged the papal Palazzo on the Quirinal, and enriched Rome with churches, palaces, and fountains. Among these projects was a magnificent funeral Chapel, the Capella Paolina, in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. On the papal payroll as a decorator in this Capella one finds the name of Pietro Bernini, who travelled to Rome with his young son to toil on it. Pietro is known today only because he produced a famous son. He was a typical craftsman of the period, trained in a version of that elegant but too often superficial style that has come to be called Mannerist. A facile workman, his reputation was respectable but not particularly exceptional. But he is primarily interesting to us as the teacher of little Gianlorenzo. All agree that the boy was a prodigy, perhaps one of the outstanding artistic prodigies of all time. We still have works from his 10th year that have survived. The brilliant painter Annibale Carracci, who died in 1609 when Bernini was only 10, wrote that "Bernini had arrived in his childhood where others might glory to be in old age." Pietro was an ideal teacher and in this he clearly differs from Mozart's demanding and egocentric father, Leopold. When Cardinal 25

Barberini saw little Gianlorenzo, then eight years old, sculpting a bust he said to Pietro, "Watch out, he will surpass his master." Pietro's reply, "It doesn't bother me, for as you know, in that case the loser wins," was unlike anything Mozart's ungenerous father would have said about his supremely talented son. The only difficulty Pietro found in mentoring his son was to control Gianlorenzo’s insatiable desire to work and learn. For three years Bernini spent every day in the Vatican, sketching ancient marbles and modern paintings. He studied the endlessly powerful Laocoon, the Apollo Belvedere, and the numerous Hellenistic torsos: these were his principal teachers. But he also drew the paintings of Raphael and Michelangelo, studying the figures with special care and, according to his son Domenico, who inherited the studies, he "made so many sketches you wouldn't believe it." Pietro's continuous employment by the Pope and his ―nephew,‖ Cardinal Scipione Borghese, led to his 10year-old son’s first artistic commission, a 1609 sculpture of the infant Jupiter with a goat and a faun (which can still be seen in Cardinal Borghese's gallery). The young Bernini thereby had access to study the works in the Cardinal’s collection, possibly the finest of its era. At 15 he carved a figure of his martyred name saint, Lawrence. The marble flames are an early indication of Bernini's constant attempts at enlarging the realism of sculpture by emulating painting. The saint looks upward, demonstrating the triumph of his believing spirit over his tortured flesh. Domenico tells us that his father put his own leg into a flame in order to observe the expression on his own agonised face. Apocryphal or not, this would have been typical of the young Bernini who practiced similar stunts on other occasions in the service of truthful expression. In 1618, when Bernini was 19, he received his first large-scale commission from Cardinal Borghese. It was to be a group sculpture of Aeneas fleeing Troy carrying his father Ansiches with his young son Ascanius toddling behind them. From the Aeneid: "Quick, then, dear father," I said, "climb onto my back and I will Carry you on my shoulders -- that's a burden will not be burdensome. However things turn out, at least we shall share one danger, One way of safety, both of us….

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There are some youthful problems in this first attempt at a major work: the composition is cramped and tentative, the three figures seem crowded, and the centre of gravity is distressingly high. The tiny, humped-up base on which the towering group perch precariously appears, to the eye, unstable. Yet the genius within the sculptor is also evident: muscles, sinews, and veins play realistically under Aeneas’s skin and the sagging skin of the old man is subtly differentiated from that of the younger pair. It was an enormous success and went far to advance Bernini's growing repute. His early development is crowned by three great works carved also for Cardinal Scipione Borghese and these are Pluto and Persephone, Apollo and Daphne, and David. These not only show increasing mastery of the medium but the brilliant series contains within it no less than an artistic revolution. They were sculpted for the Cardinal's Villa and there, 400 years later, they still are but in the middle of the room instead of against the wall as Bernini intended.

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Pluto and Persephone (1621-2) was the first to be completed and stuns the viewer by its amazing virtuosity as Bernini pushed the resources of marble sculpture to their extremity. Bernini's stupendous technique as a marble cutter has seemingly allowed him to use the obdurate material as if it were dough and achieves the effects of bronze, which is cast from wax models. The texture of the skin, the flying ropes of hair, Persephone's tears, and above all the yielding flesh of the girl in the clutch of her divine rapist initiate a new phase of sculptural history. The action is depicted in a climactic moment as Pluto seems to have just snatched the voluptuous maiden who twists, struggles, and cries aloud in vain. Apollo and Daphne (1622-5) followed and carried the pictorialism of its predecessor to

heights never before seen. The subject (Apollo, having been struck 28

by Eros’s golden arrow, falls in love with Daphne, the nymph daughter of the river god, who is unimpressed and tries to flee. Just as Apollo catches up to her she cries out to her father and is transformed into a laurel tree which somewhat diminishes Apollo's interest) was common in painting but rare in sculpture because of the extraordinary difficulty of representing Daphne's metamorphosis. As before, Bernini chose the crucial moment: just as Apollo thinks he has achieved his goal Daphne's fleeing form begins to be enveloped by the encircling bark, her fingers leaf out, and her toes take root. Apollo has just caught up with her and has encircled her waist but his facial expression indicates a beginning awareness that something has gone wrong. Daphne does not yet seem aware of her transformation and still fears a loss of virtue. Bernini put the unfinished Apollo and Daphne aside for a year or so and instead completed the third work, David, in 1624. Feet wide apart, David twists to gain the maximum swing for his shot while his head remains fixed in his concentration on the gigantic adversary. The unruly hair, the knitted brow, and above all the clenched mouth indicate one of those moments when the complete physical and psychic resources of the will are summoned to superhuman effort. Unlike Neptune's target, and Apollo's, Goliath is not present. The decisive action is not taking place but about to occur. This trilogy marked the end of Bernini's commissions from Cardinal Borghese. Scipio lost his power base and much of his income when his "uncle" died in 1623 and was succeeded as Pope by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who took the name Pope Urban VIII and determined that he and he alone would pick and choose -- and pay for -- Bernini's future sculptural commissions.

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Comparing David's face to that of Bernini himself will show a remarkable resemblance, which of course is not at all coincidental. He modelled it on his own image and, in a nice piece of historical trivia, on several occasions none other than Cardinal Maffeo Barberini himself (in his pre-Pope days) held a mirror up for the sculptor while Bernini was chipping away at David's face. A marvellous vision of passing the torch. Bernini was always a devout man and became very wealthy, both subjects upon which a future Barberini Pope could easily converse with his artist. This changeover from Borghese to Barberini is a convenient ending point for this brief look at Bernini's early career. When he began his career Bernini found a developed tradition of autonomous, self-sufficient statuary that existed only for the delight of the sophisticated aristocracy who had commissioned it. By the time he was twenty-five Bernini had overthrown this tradition. His goal was to tie sculpture to the mass of its architectural surroundings and he began to relate his work to the space enclosed by that architecture. Bernini’s sculptures charge the atmosphere of its locations and make them part of a larger and more comprehensive conception, both spatial and psychological. In addition, and more important to non-experts like me, Bernini also discovered and developed the sensuous and colouristic potentialities of sculpture. He desired to create colouristic affects in a monochromatic material and focused much of his attention on the surfaces of his subjects. He was primarily a sculptor but his vision was permanently influenced by the Renaissance painters who had studied antique statuary and then translated it into a two-dimensional surface. Bernini perceived and created as both a sculptor and as a painter. With a new and admiring patron ensconced in the Vatican and with access to nearly unlimited funds, Bernini now experienced a new, official, and more demanding role. He was soon placed in charge of Pope Urban's entire artistic programme. He would no longer have time for private commissions but would have the entire city of Rome at his disposal. On the day of his elevation to the papacy Urban supposedly called in the twenty-three year old sculptor and told him, "Your luck is great to see Cardinal Maffeo Barberini become Pope, Cavaliere; but ours is much greater that Cavalier Bernini alive in our pontificate." For the next twenty-one years Pope and genius enjoyed a relationship unmatched in the history of artistic patronage.

Digression #3-b: Bernini and Barberini We left off our multipart digression on Gianlorenzo Bernini with the installation of his great admirer Maffeo Barberini as Pope Urban VIII in 1623. This installment will focus on the remarkable patron/artist relationship between them that forever defined the direction of Baroque sculpture and architecture in Rome. Theirs was an extraordinary, perhaps unique, partnership. A more representative illustration of this era of absolute monarchy can be well appreciated by a look at just the first 30

sentence of the dedicatory letter written by Johann Sebastian Bach, a certified towering genius, to the Margrave of Brandenburg, a certified crawling mediocrity, on the occasion of the publication of his six Brandenburg concerti: “As I had the good fortune a few years ago to be heard by Your Royal Highness, at Your Highness's commands, and as I noticed then that Your Highness took some pleasure in the little talents which Heaven has given me for Music, and as in taking Leave of Your Royal Highness, Your Highness deigned to honour me with the command to send Your Highness some pieces of my Composition: I have in accordance with Your Highness's most gracious orders taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments; begging Your Highness most humbly not to judge their imperfection with the rigor of that discriminating and sensitive taste, which everyone knows Him to have for musical works, but rather to take into benign Consideration the profound respect and the most humble obedience which I thus attempt to show Him." The pathetically obsequious nature of this twaddle is indeed heartrending to consider. Would that Bach had had access to the foreknowledge that he would be remembered and admired forever while the petty despot, who likely never bothered to look at his concerti let alone thank the Kantor of St Thomas Kirche for them, is taken into account at all today only because of Bach’s dedication to him. Proof that while ars may be longe, vita is certainly brevis. Back to Bernini and Barberini. Urban essentially kicked off Bernini's architectural career with a commission to design a new entrance portico for the small church of Santa Bibiana (Vivian) and the result was a simple solution notable for its focus and clarity. Within Bernini provided a statue of the martyr which was placed in a niche above the high altar. She had been tied to a column and whipped with leaded chords. Bernini depicts her at the moment of her martyrdom, her right arm supported by the column, her head and eyes cast upward to receive her sadly deluded vision of heavenly glory. This commission was the first of Bernini's to have a religious focus and the statue the first of his to be draped. Pope Urban’s most important artistic challenge was to ornament St Peters Cathedral. This enormous Basilica, begun more than a century earlier by Bramante for Pope Julius II (never fear -- there will be sizeable digression to come on Pope Julius and St Peters), had only recently been completed with nave and facade. To the Pope the decoration of the church demanded the brilliance of Bernini and from 1623 until his death fifty-seven years later the sculptor was rarely without some project for the embellishment of that mammoth organism. 31

Urban concluded that the most pressing need for St Peters was for a canopy (baldacchino) over the site of St Peter’s grave directly under Michelangelo's dome. The stupendous size of the church required an extraordinary enhancement. A ―baldachin‖ refers to a silk cloth from Baghdad (the derivation of the word) and, by extension, any rich fabric of silk and gold. During the middle ages a canopy of rich material was often utilised by mediaeval artists to indicate a person or place of exceptional consequence.

Bernini worked assiduously on the canopy for slightly less than ten years and the project occupied most of his energy. It is so corpulent that it required 6200 kg (almost 7 tons) of bronze to complete. Fortunately there were still a few classical Roman monuments around that had not yet been entirely stripped of their decorations and it was little exertion for the Pope to issue orders to liberate what remained. Even the hallowed Pantheon which had somehow (= it was converted into a church early on) managed to survive barbarian invasions, the sack of Rome by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1527, and the constant shoplifting by both popes and nobles over the centuries, could not survive this cause. It was this removal of all the remaining bronze from the Pantheon’s portico that finally led the talking statue Pasquino (those that have studied and retained a previous chapter of long ago will have the advantage here) to display his most famous pasquinade: "Quod non fecerunt barbari/Fecerunt Barberini" (what the Barbarians didn't do, the Barberinis did). It stands on four pedestals of marble on which there are carved, pragmatically, a liberal scattering of Barberini heraldic bees. The four twisted columns of bronze would recall for any Catholic the twisted marble columns of the original St Peters of Constantine. Like the portable canopies used in processions to cover the 32

Eucharist, fringes and tassels dangle from the top of the covering. Inside the "ciborium" is a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, in a burst of golden rays. Pairs of smaller angels support the Pope's political emblems: the keys, the tiara, the book, and sword. The vertex, where four vast ribs and palm branches converge from the four corners, is crowned by the cross, set on a golden globe. The Baldacchino of Bernini is the first Baroque monument of world significance. It freely combines natural, architectural, and decorative forms and fuses them into an amazing whole that functions not only as a symbol and as a tomb marker but also as a mediator between us little people and the irreverently large dimensions of St Peters. This act of mediation is performed by the perfect proportional integration of the Baldacchino into its setting and, more significantly, by its own hybrid of sculpture and architecture. Working for a decade and supervising dozens of assistants on such a complex and sizeable venture was also the first significant test of Bernini's unparalleled executive talents. Therefore it is also the first endeavour to provide for art historians a recurrent problem in Bernini studies: to what extent is this, or any of his large undertakings, actually by Bernini? It continues to this day to provide a great deal of debate and income for art historians as a final answer will surely never be found. Next up for Bernini within St Peters was the decoration of the four great piers that support the dome. Among the numerous Christian "relics" found within the Basilica are four of particular importance and Pope Urban assigned the sculptor the task of providing four colossal (three times lifesize) statues relating to these relics: St Helena with her piece of the True Cross, St Veronica with her sudarium (essentially a handkerchief to wipe sweat off a face, perhaps during a particular crucifixion), St Andrew with his cross, and St Longinus, the Roman centurion who showed kindness to Jesus, with his spear. The actual relics (I for one will not vouch for their authenticity) are housed above these figures in shallow niches. The entire design was by Bernini and his assistants are known to have worked only on the Roman traitor. Like most of Bernini's efforts in St Peters work often progressed haltingly and many commissions overlapped so an absolutely chronological approach cannot be strictly maintained. However, it can be stated with assurance that work began on the four statues within the piers in 1628 and was completed in 1638.

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Bernini did manage to fit in during this period a bust of his first great patron, Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1632). We are indeed all very fortunate that the sculptor found time for this final tribute, completed the year before the Cardinal’s death. Some sources claim that it was Urban himself who ordered the portrait of the man who had been instrumental in his election to the papacy. The result is not only a precious document of a great patron portrayed by a great artist, it is also a milestone in the history of sculpture and one of the finest portraits ever completed. The Cardinal is shown in the act of speaking and moving; the action is caught on the wing, at a moment that seems to reveal all the characteristic qualities of the subject. His extraordinarily impressive gaze glints in the light (the product of pupils carved like inverted gun sights). In order to achieve the immediacy that makes us feel the Borghese bust is actually alive and breathing, Bernini relied on a novel preparatory device. Instead of taking a likeness from a formal sitting, he watched and sketched his subject in the act of carrying on his daily affairs. These sketches allowed him to preserve an improvisatory impression in the completed marble, even when it was highly finished. A story that sounds apocryphal, but actually isn't at all, is told that when the bust was almost completed Bernini discovered a flaw in the marble that ran across the forehead which would have disfigured the work. In order to fulfil the commission (and collect his sizeable fee) Bernini, in secret, made a copy. When the sculptor produced the defective bust to the Cardinal, his former patron tried nobly to hide his disappointment. Then Bernini produced his second version leading to immense delight all around. The story further claims that Bernini took but four days to construct his perfect copy. That seems ridiculous on its face but since it had taken him but a fortnight to sculpt the original it actually makes perfect sense. It was both inevitable and obvious that Bernini should carve a great series of images of his friend and protector, Urban. One is his finest papal bust, of 1638. The ageing Pope seems 34

to be in a reverie; his hooded eyes are sunk into sockets creased with worry. Years of responsibility (and failure) have saddened his patron's face. Here is a portrait of a man who was disastrously unsuccessful in affairs of state and papal finances, who was humiliated by his worthless but well-rewarded relatives, but who was an artistic patron of imagination and insight, a great humanist, and a dear friend of the sculptor. Great men, by which I mean wealthy men, begin to plan their tombs as soon as they achieve great power, normally while still in their youth. When Urban and Bernini made their plans for the pier niches it required the removal of the tomb of Pope Paul III (the Farnese pope) to elsewhere within St Peters. This opened up a place for Urban, who was still alive and had full pockets and whose decisions were enforceable. Paul's tomb was modelled on the general scheme of Michelangelo’s Medici tombs in Florence. Bernini's solution for Urban (planned in 1627, completed 1647) is a much more imaginative interpretation of this rather respectable exemplar. The seated Pope, in gilt bronze, gives a commanding sign of benediction. His throne rests on a high base rising behind the ornate sarcophagus of marble and bronze. To the left and right lean marble Virtues. A number of Barberini bees alight capriciously on the sarcophagus and statue base. A skeletal Death above the coffin inscribes the name of "Urban VIII" in gold letters on the bronze tablet. 35

Bernini's dramatic clarity gave ideal expression to the religious attitudes of his age and the contrast of gilt bronze and milky marble was exploited with a richness that had never been seen before. The monument was one of Bernini's greatest triumphs. At its unveiling in 1647 Urban's rival and successor, Innocent X (Pamphili), who thought little of Bernini, perhaps in great measure because his predecessor had thought so much of him, was heard to exclaim, "They say bad things about Bernini, but he is a great and rare man." In his mid-30s Bernini became ill and had to rest at home for a few weeks. Pope Urban visited him one day (a rather unique and significant demonstration of concern), and urged the sculptor to marry and have children. At the time Bernini was a well-known player and enjoyed many favours of many women. He told the Pope that his statues were his children and they would keep his memory alive. But eventually he did marry (May, 1639) Caterina Tezio, a woman half his age who came without a dowry but certainly with a womb, and they had a long marriage marked by genuine affection. Caterina bore him eleven children (it seems that in everything Bernini was prolific) of whom nine reached maturity. Simultaneously Bernini's personal religious convictions, always genuine, seem to have strengthened and deepened. For years he walked to the church of the Gesù every evening for Vespers. Despite his association with the nobility of Europe and his personal wealth, he lived a simple life with few pretensions. Cardinal Mazarin, the Prime Minister to the King of France, offered Bernini an enormous salary to move to France and work for King Louis XIV. It was tempting but he was loyal to his patrons and refused to accept the proposition. When Urban heard of the offer he advised that "projects in France are begun in heat but end in nothing." He later added that "Bernini was made for Rome, and Rome for him." Bernini was more than a great artist during the papacy of Maffeo Barberini, he was the virtual artistic dictator of Rome. No Italian artist since Giotto had been so completely triumphant and Bernini's powerful position naturally earned him the envy and enmity of all those who could not successfully compete with him artistically or financially. A contemporary artist wrote of him, "That dragon who ceaselessly guarded the orchards of the Hesperides made sure that no one else should snatch the golden apples of papal favour. He spat poison everywhere and was always planting ferocious spikes along the path that led to rich rewards." So long as Urban was alive Bernini was unassailable; after his death Bernini's fortunes took an almost fatal turn for the worse.

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Digression #3-c: Bernini’s Later Years Those of you with a proper appreciation for the merit of these submissions will surely have them regularly printed out on vellum and enclosed within covers of fine Corinthian leather. I refer these grateful admirers to the first digression, that which covered the Piazza Navona, which was built by Pope Innocent X (Pamphilj) to serve as an appropriate front yard for his family Palazzo, which remains on the wonderful Piazza but is now disguised as the Brazilian embassy to Italy. Those among you who simply delete these e-mails or just look at the pictures are referred at this time to: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08020b.htm where you can read about, in far less amusing and enlightening prose, Bernini's new patron. It is significant to Bernini that Urban VIII was the last Pope to take a significant part in European politics. Long before he died in 1644 it was clear that the papacy was no longer a power of European significance. His successor, Innocent X, inherited a far more restricted political and economic situation then Urban's had been only twenty years before. Because Urban had systematically raided the papal treasury (in large measure to support his brothers and "nephews" in a splendid manner) there no longer were adequate funds for art. Upon his death the papacy was essentially bankrupt. Innocent X quickly became the implacable enemy of the entire Barberini family, some of whom concluded that this would be a good time to enter into comfortable exile elsewhere. Similarly artistic opportunities were significantly diminished. The Barberini Pope had been the most lavish patron of art since the Roman emperors; the cupboard was now bare for such nonessentials. Gianlorenzo Bernini had greatly benefited from his close relationship to Urban. Now that identification would work against him. Innocent was only too eager to hear and think the worst of him. And in an example of wretched timing, Bernini gave the new Pope enough rope with which to hang the sculptor almost as soon as he took office. When Carlo Maderno completed his work on St Peter’s facade in 1612 he flanked it with two gigantic foundations which were intended to be future supports for two campanili (bell towers). It was intended all along that these bell towers would be constructed so that the facade would not appear too wide. Bernini, as the Official Architect of St Peter’s, submitted to Pope Urban, in 1637, drawings and a model which were quickly accepted. Since the facade had been built over underground springs he was concerned about the state of the foundations. Either his information was faulty (like Rick Blaine, he was misinformed) or his comprehension of the situation was. Soon after construction began cracks began to appear in the structure. In 1641 work was stopped and Bernini became the target of all those all those over whom he had ruled in the artistic world for all those years. As soon as Innocent became Pope Bernini's critics, hungry for commissions and recognition after his near monopoly, found

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ready ears. His great rival Francesco Borromini (who merits his own digression but, alas, even I have some boundaries) whispered in those ears and in 1646 Bernini's stalled and cracked tower was pulled down and the architect was in disgrace. And that, boys and girls, is why the most significant facade in Christendom appears to be far too wide. Bernini's reputation and genius were so imposing, however, that he continued to receive magnificent private commissions (including that of Santa Teresa in the Cornaro Chapel, previously described in great detail) despite the papal boycott. And even the crusty Pope's heart was softened when Bernini provided his beloved Piazza Navona with the magnificent trio of fountains (op. cit.) that so enhances it that he was heard to grudgingly remark that Bernini was "born to deal with great Princes." Once again he was in papal favour (if not in papal affection) and commissions from many sources came his way in such number that his studio had to absorb most of the talented sculptors in Rome in order to complete its work. The competent Alessandro Algardi may have become Pope Innocent's favourite house sculptor but even the Pope knew where to turn when he needed that extra touch of brilliance. I will not repeat here a discussion of his bust of Pope Innocent which was previously described in the section on the Museo Doria-Pamphilj (now accessible only to the most enlightened of you) but his bust of Francesco d’Este, Duke of Modena, culminated his revolution in sculpted portraiture (1650-51). It embodies Bernini's mature vision of the absolute ruler. He retained the freedom and spontaneity that he had achieved in his bust of Cardinal Borghese but now united that with heroic pomp and grandiose movement that portrayed the age at least as much as the man. He dressed the Duke in parade armour and flowing robes that established his state and dignity more truly than realistic dress. The image is grand and imposing and creates a new type of heroic portraiture eminently suited to great Princes and Kings in the age of absolutism. This and his bust of King Louis XIV (completed during the triumphal tour of France he undertook in 1665) set the standard for monarchical portraiture until the time of the French revolution. The Pope that followed Innocent was Alexander VII (1655-67) of the immensely wealthy (even before becoming Pope) Chigi family that had been the foremost papal bankers since the reign of the spendthrift Leo X (Medici) in 1510. Despite the continued difficulties in the papal treasury Alexander essentially reversed the policies of Innocent X and his papacy was rich with architectural and decorative commissions, many directed at Bernini and his studio. Although Bernini continued to sculpt masterpieces his greatest

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accomplishments of this latter period were in the field of architecture, especially his work in and around St Peter’s Basilica and the two churches he designed around 1660.

The most theatrical of Bernini's churches is Sant’Andrea al Quirinale (1658), found just up the block from Borromini's San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (previously discussed when visited on Wednesday) on the Quirinal Hill. He faced a similar problem as Borromini: the site was quite small and did not afford space for a typical Baroque church building. Cardinal Camillo Pamphilj provided the funds for a new church to serve the Jesuits novices living nearby on the Quirinal Hill. Bernini faced the size problem by planning an oval with the main entrance and high altar on the short axis (i.e., no nave at all). A visitor approaching on the extraordinarily narrow sidewalk (as we did) sees first an exedra (a semicircular recess, often crowned by a semi-dome, which is set into a building's façade) leading to a series 39

of segmental steps. You can see from the street (well, maybe from across the heavily trafficked street, if you can somehow get there alive) the sides of the church curving back above the walls of the entrance area. Once through the door we are immediately confronted by the high altar; the distance from entrance to altar is the shortest in the church. Only after this initial vision of the main altar do our eyes wander around the sharply curved sides of the space. Two pairs of fluted columns in richly veined red marble screen off the altar space wherein light is received from a seemingly invisible source. St Andrew seems to float on a cloud as he breaks up the pediment above the columns. The martyr looks upward to the symbol of the Holy Spirit stuccoed in the lantern of the dome. The design reinforces the domination of the Ascension over the Crucifixion by having the lower part of the church much darker than the richly stuccoed and gilded dome above, brightly lit by windows over the cornice. In this way Bernini shaped an entire religious experience; his church is the framework and the Theatre of action. The painting of the Martyrdom of St Andrew (by Guglielmo Courtois), the statue, and the relief decorations are the means by which the religious drama unfolds. Sant'Andrea is the logical consummation of the principles Bernini had been evolving for decades and that he so brilliantly illuminated in the Cornaro Chapel. Like his sculpture, Bernini's architecture is based upon a broader conception of art than had previously existed. Bernini told his son Domenico that he "feels a special satisfaction at the bottom of my heart for this one work of architecture, and I often come here as a relief from my duties to consult myself with my work." Domenico was struck by the statement because his father had rarely shown signs that he was pleased with any of his works all of which, "he considered far inferior to the Beauty that he knew and conceived in his mind." Randi and I finally got inside Sant'Andrea towards the end of our trip and despite the overpowering heat of the day were mightily impressed by what Bernini could accomplish in a site smaller than just one of the piers at St Peter’s Basilica that he himself had embellished decades ago. These endless digressions will temporarily conclude with two of his most ambitious projects, both for St Peter’s Basilica: the Piazza in front and St Peter’s chair in the apse. It was written by a contemporary that "the sun had not set on the first day of his papacy before Alexander VII Chigi sent for Bernini" and the Pope soon began to rely upon him as religiously as had Urban. Alexander retained Bernini as Architect of St Peter’s but also made him his personal architect and Architect of the Camera as well. It is therefore under Alexander that Bernini first came into his own as an architect of international importance. Like Michelangelo, Bernini considered architecture a sideline, but again like Michelangelo, he brought to architectural design what is contemporaries could explain only as a divine gift. Michelangelo believed that sculptors made better architects than painters because sculptors worked in relief and Bernini quite agreed. The Piazza before St Peter’s had but one major function: to contain the crowds that gathered for the papal benediction given on Easter Sunday and other special occasions. Bernini's challenge was to enclose a space as substantial as possible to accommodate the worshippers and to give them a view of the Pope in the window of the Benediction 40

Loggia. Bernini also had to provide for papal viewings and blessings from the apartment in the Vatican Palace. Bernini designed a vast oval Piazza held between the pincers of two freestanding colonnades. At one point Bernini added a third section of colonnade to block off the axial entrance, further enclosing the space, but that part of his plan was never executed. (That gifted architect Benito Mussolini later altered the entire approach to St Peter’s and that particular desecration will be discussed in the next submission) Bernini likened his Piazza design to the outstretched arms of the church welcoming the faithful. Thus, even this seemingly pure architectural creation has an anthropomorphic and sculptural connotation and function. Direct historical sources of inspiration for the Piazza are difficult to find and his novel solution to the various needs of the Piazza (enclosing arms, directional guides, and counterbalances to the wide facade of the church (and whose fault was that???)). The colonnade with its continuous Ionic frieze does not call attention to itself but stands as a penetrable passage as well as a guiding and moulding wall. He also had to deal with the existing obelisk and fountain already residing in the Piazza. He planned the obelisk to be the central focus of the oval, moved Carlo Maderno's fountain so that it would be rebuilt on the right, long axis of the oval and finally constructed a matching fountain on the left, long axis.

The above is a pretty good sized picture (taken from the dome facing Rome across the Tiber) but nothing but actual experience of the virtuosity of the commanding space can do it justice. His son has written that the Piazza has few equals in antiquity and none in modern times. While Domenico can fairly be accused of some bias in writing about his father's works, he is hardly alone in these judgements. But to fully appreciate the

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accomplishment one needs to take an active part of the drama of papal benediction by standing within its enclosing arms in the company of 150,000 like-minded worshippers. If the Piazza can be experienced as, in a tortuous mixed metaphor, the sonorous prelude to Peter’s Church, the Cathedra Petri (Peter’s Chair) provides the magnificent finale (1657-66). A Cathedral is so-called because bishops always have their seats in the chief church of their ecclesiastical district. The Pope is Bishop of Rome but his seat is in St John Lateran but the traditional throne of St Peter, the first Bishop of Rome, is kept in the church memorialised by his grave, St Peter’s in the Vatican. The Basilica is an atypical Cathedral because it is in part public Chapel of the Pope, part mausoleum of St Peter, and part symbol of the legitimate succession and primacy of Roman bishops from Peter to the present. Therefore the monument exhibiting St Peter’s chair (or throne) has a far-reaching significance. Bernini designed a decorative frame for the chair that would also create a goal or target for a pilgrim’s passage through St Peter’s Basilica. The mediaeval chair of wood (essentially a relic) is wholly encased in a magnificent gilt bronze throne (essentially a reliquary). On its back Christ's command to Peter to "feed my sheep" is illustrated in relief. Above, putti hold the papal keys and tiara while beside the empty seat stand two angelic creatures. The seat itself seems to hover in the air, seemingly poorly supported 42

by four imposing figures of gilt bronze, representing holy men from both the East and the West that had sustained the papacy in early times. On high holy power is manifested by the golden glory of Angels on clouds and rays of light emanating from the Dove of the Holy Spirit painted on a golden glass window. The entire vision is visible between the columns of the baldacchino under the dome from which only Peter’s successors are permitted to officiate. Bernini took great pains to adjust the size of the cathedra so that it can be viewed from the entrance to the church, down the lengthy nave. He didn't much care at all if the designer of the baldacchino approved or not. In our 1992 visit I sat in a pew (now roped off, alas) and just stared at Peter's chair and its setting for almost an hour, without any world-weariness, while Randi and Zachary climbed up the dome. Good decision, Gaber. The execution of the Cathedra Petri was the work of many hands but was of only one intellect. No other sculpture by Bernini so perfectly exemplifies his outstanding powers of artistic management. He delegated most of the execution to his studio minions but remained in absolute control of the project. These two endeavors for the Basilica -- the Piazza and the Cathedra -- are almost exactly contemporary and the contrast between these two works of Bernini's middle to late age demonstrates once again his unparalleled versatility. We are going to bring this to a conclusion at this point even though the long-lived Bernini had yet many miles to go before he slept. In 1664 Bernini won a competition to submit plans for the completion of the Louvre facade in Paris. He travelled to Paris for four months in 1665 and, while his proposal was never carried out (remember Urban’s forewarning to Bernini about the French tendency to talk but not to act?) his visit was akin to that of a megastar who was feted and admired wherever he went. He also took the opportunity to sculpt a regal bust of Louis XIV. The long-term significance of his expedition for us was to symbolically transfer artistic hegemony from increasingly impoverished Italy to increasingly prosperous France.

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Other great works of his later period include individual statues carved for two chapels belonging to the Chigi family, including one in the Santa Maria del Popolo (visited by us later) which had been designed by Raphael in 1514. He also designed (1667-71) the ten life-size statues of Angels carrying the instruments of the Passion to be found upon Rome's most beloved bridge, the Ponte Sant’Angelo, leading to the Tomb of Hadrian, now the Castle Sant’Angelo. He is known to have personally sculpted only two of these (which have since been separated and placed indoors in a pleasant, dry church while recent copies bake, like us, in the sun) but designed and supervised them all. I have not here described his abundant fountains which are covered elsewhere when visited. I have even left out of these digressions our favourite statue, that of the smiling elephant supporting the smallish obelisk in front of the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which has been described elsewhere. There is simply too much productivity and too little time. You can be assured that you will continue to come across abundant references to Bernini's bountiful output when we return to the customary chronological structure. Gianlorenzo Bernini was not a lofty intellectual in the sense that some of his predecessors, such as Leonardo and Michelangelo, had been. He was, however, unusually sensitive to the cultural events of this time while remaining an outstanding individual, a genius in most of our senses of the word. His creations, more than any other works of great visual art, are the fulfilment of the religious and political and human aspirations of his age and collectively form a portrait of the face and psyche of his time. Unlike previous religious art which 44

told stories or illuminated divine events and emotions, Bernini's point of reference was the human worshipper. His goal was the revelation of Divinity to the common man through empathy and analogy, and in this realm he stands above all in the history of art. When he died (28 November, 1680, aged eighty-one) his work was already part of history. Despite his myriad pupils and his great influence European taste had swung decisively to a somewhat more decorative classicism and the primary location of that trend was not in Italy but rather in France. His writings show that it was clear to him that his time had come and gone and he accurately predicted that his reputation would wane immediately after his death. Nevertheless, Bernini's approach carried on for at least two more generations in various parts of Europe. The powerfully decorative (perhaps overly decorative) late Baroque and Rococo of central Europe would have been very dissimilar without his influence upon both architecture and sculpture. There is no doubt that his reputation has made a deserved comeback. Few would deny today that Bernini takes his place, like Donatello and Michelangelo, as the leading sculptor of his century and one of the great image makers of all time. Nobody is more significant to the artistic history of Rome. High achievement, that.

The Necropolis Beneath St Peter's Cathedral

Giovedì, 15 luglio With this submission we are at last over and done with the three-part Bernini digression and are returning to the chronological organisation which, while it does tend to creep in its petty pace, does at least move forward to what, while now seemingly far in the distance, will be a merciful ending to this project. This Thursday will be another alarm clock morning as we have a nine o'clock appointment at St Peter's to visit the Necropolis, an underground Roman street that I knew nothing about until it was uncovered in my research and immediately became a priority destination for us. While we wanted to maintain maximum flexibility, for this visit reservations were required at the French embassy (Palazzo Farnese), the Galleria Borghese, and the Necropolis. Their website demanded an e-mail to the excavation office (il scavi) in which I told them the exact number of reservations we required (2), our names (Steven and Randi), in what language we preferred the tour (English -- none of this Italian or French only stuff like at the Palazzo Farnese), the date for which we were requesting a tour (15 July - they would assign the time), and full contact information. They replied by e-mail that we could come on 15 July at 9 AM and requested I confirm and pay if that time was acceptable. I won't send a credit card number via e-mail so I called the office and fortunately found a patient functionary who tolerated my pidgin Italian to complete the arrangements. Each tour had a maximum of fifteen participants all of whom had to be at least fifteen years old, without a backpack or bulky bag, without a camera, and following the rarely enforced church dress code. 45

But first we had to get there. The Vatican is across the Tiber just a short walk west from the Palazzo Olivia. We chose a few specific back streets because we were looking for what we were told was an extremely hard-to-find little restaurant that we were interested in visiting later this week -- Da Alfredo e Ada -and found it surprisingly easily. We crossed over to the Vatican on the mediocre Ponte Vittorio Emmanuale (named after the first King of reunited Italy). This bridge was not completed until 1911 and is not at all historic like the Milvian Bridge further downstream. Once in the Vatican it was a matter of a short left turn and we were on one of Mussolini's pompous architectural roads which was cut directly into a historic neighbourhood resulting in the destruction of many superb buildings. His intention was to allow for a grand entrance to St Peter's, appropriate for a minor triumph for a classical Roman conquering general, or modern dictator, which is where the Via della Conciliazione dead ends. Besides the numerous grotesquely graceless columns Il Duce had put up on both sides of this harebrained concept, the problem with the road is that it was the intention of all of its architects, from Bramante to Michelangelo to Bernini, that the Basilica would create a commanding surprise, and a strong emotional religious experience, when it is suddenly come upon using the thenexisting narrow streets. We had already discovered that coffee is not easy to come by early in the Roman morning, at least not at outdoor tables. We decided to step into a particularly pretty place, the Don Chisciotte (Italian for "Don Quixote") Universal Bar, for the one 46

and only indoor coffee order of our three trips to Rome. I couldn't find any downloadable photographs of the bar but if you are at all interested you can see Flash pictures of it at: http://www.gruppodonchisciotte.com/sito/universalbareng.html . At least it gave us the opportunity to experience a more typical local pastime, a quick and cheap morning coffee at the bar. The way it works is this: you first go to the cashier and tell her/him what you intend to order and pay for it after which you are provided with a receipt which you take to the bar and hand to the barista (which, despite Starbucks pomposity, is not what they are called in Italy) who then goes behind their enormous, complicated, noisy, and shiny coffee gizmo and returns with the cappuccini and cornetti. Actually, it was all quite easy and quite pleasant (and cheap -- €4.8 instead of the usual 10-15 Euros outside) but because we are just temporary tourists we will continue to have our morning coffees at outdoor tables on patios for the balance of our visit and pay through the nose for the caprice. We had no difficulty, obviously, finding the Basilica at the end of the road and the emailed instructions were quite helpful in locating the Swiss Guard, in their ridiculous outfits, who would further direct us. There were two of them, both quite tall and both quite handsome, and they spoke perfect English as they wished us a good day as they opened the gate for us. There is a small office off to the right where some compulsive folks were already lined up for the nine o'clock tour. We went inside, flashed our confirming e-mails, received our tickets, and were shuffled out to stand in a meaningless line which was, nonetheless, mildly fought over. At precisely 9 o'clock our tour guide appeared from the entrance and collected us fifteen early risers. She is a South Asian from Dallas, Texas and was most pleasant and informative. And, most necessarily, patient. She led us down a few sets of plain, concrete steps to the Necropolis. A brief connecting summary will be useful here. Constantine built the original St Peter's basilica upon what he believed was the site of the burial of St Peter, because of the small shrine that had been placed there several hundred years earlier by unknown followers. Further evidence that this is the site of his interment is that Peter is thought to have been crucified at Nero's stadium which at one time dominated this area of the Vatican Hill. As all burials had to take place outside of Rome's city walls it was consistent that an ancient cemetery be located on that same Vatican Hill. Constantine's

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Basilica placed its high altar directly on top of the memorial to St Peter and it was long believed that his bones would still be found there. The first actual evidence of the ancient cemetery occurred when the old church of Constantine was pulled down during the Renaissance and the present St Peter's was built and then again in 1626 during the construction of the foundations for Bernini's massive baldacchino directly above the high altar. Our old friend, Pope Urban VIII, decided at that time not to investigate further because he feared that if the bones were not discovered and identified that doubt might be cast upon St Peter's existence in Rome. Therefore he ordered the excavators to confine their work to completing the foundations and nothing further was done. There the situation remained until 1939 and the death of Pope Pius XI. He had let it be known that he wished to be buried near the tomb of St Pius X in the overcrowded crypt. This required significant relocations of papal sarcophagi to make room for the newcomer and the hereditary workmen who have maintained the structure of St Peter's for centuries, il sanpietrini, set about exploring the crypt for a suitable position for XI’s tomb. In the course of their probings they became aware of the visible evidence of a pagan cemetery underneath the Basilica and went to the current Pope, Pius XII, to ask him if he had any interest in pursuing the matter further. XII made a courageous decision to carry on with the examination as long as the structure of the church was not endangered, which would slow things down but prevent catastrophe. So for ten years, which included the whole period of the Second World War, architects, archaeologist, and members of the sanpietrini worked in the greatest secrecy below the nave and the high altar. They issued an official account in 1951 which reported the discovery of a street of beautifully decorated Roman tombs running beneath the nave, a street hidden and unseen since Constantine's workmen built the first church on top of it 1600 years earlier. And they reported, underneath the high altar of the present church, finding the ancient shrine, the raison d'être of the first Basilica. While they were down there they discovered that the foundations of the church required some reinforcing and got that done, making the basilica stronger than ever. A few staircases were later built, the rough ground was smoothed over, and electricity was added to illuminate the area after which first scholars and then tourists were admitted. They had done a very good job because the area the guide led us down to was well lit and it’s quite safe to navigate, although I'm not sure I would recommend it to a claustrophobe. The group was primarily North American which was to be expected in an English language tour, but there were a couple of Europeans along with us. Most troubled to wear clothing suitable to a major religious institution; one or two did not but were not excommunicated from the tour. We first stopped in a large room and were given an overview of both the history and topology of the Necropolis, in the midst of some three-dimensional models and illustrations. Then downward, downward, downward.

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St Peter's basilica has a wonderful, helpful, and detail-rich website and among its riches (http://saintpetersbasilica.org/index.htm ) you can find oodles of information on the ―Scavi – Necropolis‖ but do look around elsewhere; you'll thank me. For most the climax of the tour, the moment they most eagerly await, is the viewing of "St Peter's bones‖ at the end. All along I knew that that part would end up ambiguous and uncertain at best. For Randi and me it was the glorious opportunity to walk along an old Roman road and view its modest tombs and artwork on both sides. Consider this the poor man's tour of the Appian Way leading south out of Rome to look at the oncemagnificent tombs of the wealthy.

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Let's just look at one of the tombs we walked past, that of T. Aelius Tyrannus, a freedman (once a slave, now a citizen) who took up government work helping to administer the Roman province of Belgica in the region of Gaul. We know it is his because that fact is inscribed on a tablet just inside, on the left wall. You will also find the resting places of his family and probably that of his own freed slaves, who were likely required to provide regular mourning, on-site, for Aelius Tyrannus. The titulus (the conventional inscriptions on stone that listed the honours and accomplishments of an individual) is missing in the tomb but its elegant, multi-coloured frame remains. The walls retain their niches which still contain their alabaster cineraria plants. Most remarkable for us was the vibrant wall paintings upon which you could still recognise peacocks, a basket of flowers, and birds in full flight. There are arcosolia (the arched recesses used as a place of entombment) and niches for cinerary urns in the walls; there are also some remains of the mosaic pavement in small pieces of black and white marble. We were in no hurry to get to dem bones, dem dry bones.

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Tours depart every thirty minutes from above so while we never actually felt rushed there was a continuous, and clearly communicated, need to move along, keep moving forward. And so we, too soon in my opinion, became confronted with the small slit on the wall to which we all climbed up to peek and to see a few bones in the short distance. Well, they sure could have been St Peter's bones but the tour guide was quick to confess to the circumstantial nature of the evidence. But since faith seems to be big thing to these people it does not seem to me to be much of a stretch to make the necessary leap to this conclusion. The guide then led those who so chose into a brief prayer, an Our Father if my memory serves. There was one more thing worth mentioning: the guide took us to sit in, for a minute or two, the magnificent Chapel of St Peter, usually referred to as the Clementine Chapel. In this gilded room is kept the sacred chest protecting the sepulchre (alleged) of St Peter and in this Chapel each Pope will pray once a year. Originally added in the sixth century, in 1592 it was modified and amplified by Pope Clement VIII who, in the long and hallowed tradition of the papacy, made sure to receive full credit for his efforts. An early version of stadium naming rights. Finally we took a short cut to the grottoes and offered the opportunity to return upward via the papal crypts (a good deal; usually there is a separate admission price) where we could gaze at numerous dead popes in their final resting places, but this wasn't terribly interesting. As we have already learned it is the task of each Pope, when confronting his 51

mortality, to determine where and how they are to be buried. It apparently also is traditional to choose rather dull and prosaic designs for their tombs. I'd rather have spent ten more minutes in the Clementine Chapel. And now, for the best part. Visiting St Peter's is a rational act only at the earliest opening or in the afternoon. In the morning, around ten o'clock which it is now, lines typically wind all around Bernini's Piazza to get into the basilica. It was, of course, hot and there was no way we were going to spend ninety minutes queueing up. We would come back some other day, either earlier or later. Actually, the line is for security as there is no charge to enter the basilica itself. This helps you understand why things go so slowly. When you leave the basilica you are herded rightward through the colonnade. When class was dismissed by our guide we retraced our steps and found the Swiss guards had abandoned their post and the gate, which would have prevented us from entering against the current by the exit, was unguarded. We quickly scooted through the gate and the unruly mass of departers and with a continuous stream of ―Scusi, scusi, permesso, permesso‖ we managed to enter St Peter's. We both swore a solemn oath to light a candle as an act of contrition. Next submission we'll visit the first church of Christendom and tell the story of how a Pope's desire to have a tomb more appropriate for a Pharaoh led directly to Martin Luther's picking up his hammer and nails and setting the fuse on the Reformation.

A Pope, His Tomb, and the German Monk The ancient Romans, both Republican and Imperial, were famously tolerant of the countless religions that made their way into the city from the furthest reaches of the Empire. They had their own gods and means of communicating with them but didn't mind at all when soldiers posted to Gaul or Persia brought back with them local gods and traditions. The early Christians presented a specific difficulty to them because they not only worshipped their own One True God but also made a point of rejecting all others, including Rome's own, and of busily proselytising traditional worshippers over to their side, something they still exercise to much general annoyance. Every now and then emperors like Nero and Diocletian did what they could to create new martyrs that would soon become saints but, on the whole, it was live and let live inside the Roman Empire. Fortunately for Christians, as the Emperor Constantine prepared to do battle at the Milvian bridge in 312 A.D. he looked up and saw a cross in the sky (which included the words "in hoc signo vinces‖ (in this sign conquer)) which, after he won the battle and got to keep both his head and his Crown, he credited in some great part with the victory. In thanks he proclaimed Christianity to be a protected and honoured religion 52

within the entire Empire and called an end to the periodic culling of the herd that had been so unpleasant for earlier Christians. I have often wondered how history would have been different if he had hallucinated instead a six pointed star. Think about that. As part of his new-found Christian fondness (it is believed that Constantine may never have actually converted or, if he did, it was only on his deathbed) he constructed a fine new church in the form of a Roman Basilica upon what was believed to be the resting place of St Peter on the Vatican Hill. A Basilica was an important Roman architectural form used for major public buildings which served as a sort of multipurpose centre, usually including law courts. These were usually rectangular in form inside of which several aisles were separated by lines of columns reaching to the high ceiling. There was customarily a sizeable forecourt in front through which one passed in order to enter. Pope Sylvester I consecrated the original St Peter's in 326 and it well served as the major Christian church, and goal of pilgrimages, for over 1000 years. It is there that Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, 800. As was true of most of the rest of Rome the mediaeval period was unkind to St Peter's. When the papacy returned to Rome from its exile in Avignon (an interesting story in itself) in the reign of Nicholas V (1447-55) it found its church on the Vatican Hill to be plagued by serious structural problems. There were deteriorating masonry, shifting foundations, and walls that leaned alarmingly out of the vertical. A report by the architect Leone Alberti described the dangers: "I am convinced that very soon some slight shock or movement will cause the south wall to fall. The rafters of the roof have dragged the North Wall inwards to a corresponding degree." Nicholas decided something had to be done but his initial plans were limited in scope to shoring up the walls, adding new construction only at the apse end which he intended to 53

enlarge. Little progress was made as Nicholas’s immediate successors spent their time, energy, and money on additions to the Vatican Palace which had only recently become the official residence of the Pope (before, they had broken their bread and laid their heads at the Lateran Palace attached to St John's Basilica on the other side of town). It is here that Pope Julius II (1443-1513) enters the story. There is a 1477 painting by Melozzo da Forli which introduces the young Giuliano della Rovere to history. It depicts Pope Sixtus IV of the della Rovere family and his "nephews" (the word for nephew in Italian is nipote which serves as the derivation of "nepotism" -- of the thirty-four Cardinals Sixtus created, six were from among his ―nephews‖) including the powerful Cardinal Raffaele Riario and the future Julius II who is standing before the Pope. Giuliano followed his uncle Francesco (the future Sixtus IV) into the Franciscan order and was elevated to a Cardinal within four months of his uncle’s election as Pope in 1471. He was granted the see of the papal church San Pietro in Vincoli (visited later by us and the ironically final resting place of Julius) and spent the greater part of his time amassing benefices, contributing little of ecclesiastical value, and having children. While he was not important in the development of religious doctrine he served his uncle and his uncle's successor Innocent VIII in various diplomatic and military assignments, especially in France, with great distinction. When Innocent died in 1492 Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, no longer youthful, expected to receive the top job. Instead the awful Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia convinced the other Cardinals the Giuliano was too identified with the French and could not be trusted and it would be better for both Rome and the papacy if he himself was elected, which he was as Alexander VI. Giuliano decided that the air in France was probably safer for him to breathe and he spent most of Alexander's papacy in France and Genoa. When Alexander died in 1503 Giuliano hustled back to Rome to see if his time had arrived. To his great frustration the College of Cardinals elected instead the elderly Sienese Francesco Piccolomini who took office as Pius III. But then there was a wondrous miracle: after ruling only twenty-six days Pius himself passed upward and another election was required. This time Giuliano would take no chances. He emptied his various corpulent bank accounts and spread the money liberally around the College of Cardinals. He did his job so well that his election on 31 October, 1503 took place after a conclave of only a few hours, the briefest in papal history. Taking the name Julius II he became one of the most impatient, irascible, ambitious, and warlike men to hold the keys to the kingdom. 54

His fearless and aggressive demeanour provided him with the nickname history knows him by: pontefice terrible. He viewed the principal task of his pontificate as the firm establishment and extension of his temporal power. For the accomplishment of this task no Pope was ever better suited than Julius, whom nature and circumstances had hewn out for a soldier. But the story we are writing at this time concerns not his life but his death. Constantine's Basilica was 400 feet long by 200 feet wide with a large atrium, five columned aisles and a timber roof covered with gilded bronze plates (swiped, of course, from the Basilica of Maxentius in the Forum). 184 popes had been consecrated there, dozens of martyrs and saints were buried within its crumbling walls, and chapels and memorials had been haphazardly tacked on. Yet despite its condition the history of the faith could be read in its timbers, aisles, and altars and previous popes feared an outraged reaction from the faithful should they concoct a plan to demolish it. Even to the fearless Julius the idea of replacing Constantine's church was unthinkable and dangerous, but also irresistible. If he was accused of being a Christian Caesar, he took it as an honour. Over the objections of Cardinals, Kings, and the faithful he forged ahead not with a plan of renovation but with a plan of total destruction and new construction. And the plan involved an enormous undertaking, the building of a Basilica that in size and scale would exceed the most monumental temples of the emperors. Nothing comparable had been ventured since the Imperial days of Rome. Julius demanded a Basilica that would be a miracle in stone, that would "embody the greatness of the present and the future," that would dwarf the epic constructions of the Caesars. And to accomplish this he hired a relative unknown, the architect Donato Bramante, to design the Basilica, as well as the most famous sculptor in the world, Michelangelo, to design his tomb. These were wholly related projects: first Julius told Michelangelo how big a tomb he wanted, then he ordered Bramante to design and construct a dwelling vast enough to contain it.

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In 1505 the imperious Pope Julius summoned thirtyyear-old Michelangelo to Rome from Florence and presented him with a contract for what was usually the most prized commission of its time: a Pope's tomb. It was, in keeping with his humility and asceticism, to be a monument of unprecedented scale and complexity. It was to be a huge, freestanding foursided structure 23 x 36' (7 x 11 m) at the base, with more than forty separate larger than life figures set on three different levels. Michelangelo was thrilled with these modest plans and immediately set off for the quarries at Carrara to procure marble. When he returned to Rome eight months later, marble purchased and on its way, he found Pope Julius unexpectedly disinterested in his tomb project. He had made the final decision, with his usual audacity, to tear down the entire structure of Constantine's Basilica and his attention was wholly focused on the immense new church he planned to build to replace it. Michelangelo found it difficult to get a meeting with Julius and became so frustrated and disgusted that the day before the foundation was laid (18 April, 1506) the sculptor departed in the middle of the night for Florence, fearing he might be apprehended and returned. Two years later Pope Julius again summoned Michelangelo to Rome but on this occasion his wandering attention was on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Once again the tomb project fell to the wayside as Michelangelo picked up his paint brushes and built his scaffolding. Julius died in 1513 and several months later his heirs signed a new contract with Michelangelo to complete a redesigned, somewhat more reticent tomb to be threesided and placed against a wall. But as time passed and fond memories of Uncle Julius diminished along with their monthly stipends 56

they gradually scaled it back further and further, smaller and smaller, cheaper and cheaper. Contract succeeded contract to little effect as Julius’s successor, Leo X Medici, put Michelangelo to work in the Medici family church of San Lorenzo in Florence and his successor, Paul III Farnese, felt it would be lovely to have Michelangelo paint a Last Judgement in the Sistine. Finally, in 1542, a fifth and final contract was signed in which the three figures already completed by Michelangelo (including Moses) were deemed more than sufficient and, irony of ironies, the drastically scaled-back tomb was not to be placed in the new and enlarged St Peter's which its very existence caused to be built, but rather in the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli (Saint Peter in Chains) of which much more will be reported in a later epistle. Julius and his successors had the imagination and ambition to think very large when it came to designing and constructing the new St Peter's. It is much less true that they had the money in the papal Treasury to pay for these plans. Leo X was particularly skilled at emptying the papal bank accounts and was heard to say upon his election that, ―Since God has been pleased to give us the Papacy, let us enjoy it." How then, to pay for this enormous project? Indulgences. Indulgeo is Latin for "to be kind or tender" and was codified in Roman law. The process of issuing indulgences is roughly analogous to a civil court proceeding. A Christian sinner essentially turns himself in to the religious authorities, admits his crime, is given a hearing, and receives a sentence or penalty. Granting an indulgence is comparable to suspending or commuting that sentence. As an unsullied concept, both sides benefit. A confessed sinner performs good works or makes a charitable offering in exchange for either a reduced penance now or a shortened purgatory in the next life. Christians could also receive redemptions in the form of indulgences for making a pilgrimage, joining a crusade, giving alms, endowing a church, or other worthy causes. Human nature being what it is there should be no surprise that the system was rife with abuse. And misuse was most likely when money changed hands. In 1513 Julius issued a redemption, offering an indulgence to any good soul who had strayed and was agreeable and able to make a contribution to his spanking new "Basilica Fund." Leo, always in the market for ideas to raise money to spend, appreciated a good thing when he saw it and renewed and expanded the offer. As his money troubles worsened through personal extravagance he increasingly used the sale of indulgences as a way of keeping the papacy solvent and paying the bills on the unhurried construction of St Peter's. Soon enough mass runs of indulgences rolled off the earliest ecclesiastical printing presses. He assigned his friend and fellow Florentine Lorenzo Pucci the task of initiating a marketing blitz and Pucci sent his preachers across the Alps, advertising all over Europe this new opportunity for redemption. They pedalled their indulgences as if they were eternal insurance annuities, worthy speculations against the Day 57

of Judgement. They bartered absolution for building funds and a wholesale fleecing of the faithful ensued. The salesman creatively came up with new and exciting variations. If a customer hadn't yet sinned (at least in his own estimation) and therefore had no need for an indulgence, he could purchase one that would forgive in advance any sin he might later commit. Then there were upgraded plenary indulgences that would forgive anything and everything but would cost more than partial indulgences. It took but a brief shopping trip to Indulgences R Us, with gold in your pocket, for a free pass to Paradise. Hallelujah. The popes of the time also found a ready source of income in the sale of holy offices. Want to be a Cardinal? Pay the building fund. Want to take over a particular church in a particular town? Pay the building fund. Need a monastery built adjacent to your distillery business? Pay the building fund. It seemed like a good thing for everyone, at least those folks who counted, and by that I refer to people with money. To this party came a party pooper, a young Augustinian monk in Saxony. He had long been revolted with these forms of Catholic corruption and this wildly expanded trafficking in indulgences to finance the enormous new Basilica was the tipping point for him. He had been profoundly shaken by the decadent behaviour he saw when he visited Rome in the summer of 1511 writing, "If there is a hell, then Rome is built upon it." From his perspective, that of a Friar with an principled vow of poverty, a Medici Prince now a Pope did not need the pennies of the poor to finance an opulent new church. He rhetorically asked, "Why does the Pope not build this Basilica with his own funds instead of with the money of the poor faithful?" Over several autumn nights in 1517, during the reign of the laughably corrupt Leo X, he wrote out a long list of grievances railing against the expense of the new St Peter's and the spurious indulgences that were financing it. Among the ninety-five theses that he nailed to the door of a church in Wittenberg were these two: 

Christians should be taught that, if the Pope knew the exactions of the indulgencepreachers, he would rather the church of St Peter were reduced to ashes than be built with the skin, flesh, and bones of the sheep. 58



Why does not the Pope liberate everyone from purgatory for the sake of love (a most holy thing) and because of the supreme necessity of their souls? This would be morally the best of all reasons. Meanwhile he redeems innumerable souls for money, a most perishable thing, with which to build St Peter's Church, a very minor purpose. These theses were tacked to the door by Martin Luther on 31 October, 1517, five years to the day after Michelangelo unveiled the Sistine ceiling, paid for by papal funds obtained in trade for the fraudulent indulgences which were purchased by the skin, flesh, bones, and most of all, money of the sheep.

It is a strange and wondrous story how the greed and arrogance of the Renaissance papacy ultimately caused the loss of Northern Europe and England to Protestantism and the Reformation. It is also an extraordinary irony that Julius’s hubris in planning for a tomb more suitable to a Pharaoh than for Jesus’s humble earthly representative became a prime factor in the exponentially increasing size and decoration of the church intended to contain it and that as the Basilica became larger and larger, that very same tomb became slighter and slighter, ultimately far too unimposing to waste valuable real estate within the new St Peter's Basilica.

The Piazza Colonna, a Bad Meal, and a Very Good Surprise Once having illicitly entered St Peter's we found ourselves in a fairly crowded situation but the joint is so big that we managed to get around without too many bruises. We spent some time with Michelangelo's Pieta behind its glass wall (and exhibited far closer to the ground than Michelangelo had intended) and so many statues, memorials, tombs, paintings, frescoes, sculptures, that it would exhaust all of us for me to describe them.

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We exited slightly past high noon on this 35° (97°F) day and sought out the cafeteria just outside of St Peter's for a cold drink. The place was bright, noisy, and not particularly attractive but the prices were surprisingly reasonable, the colas were wet and cold, and it was nice to sit down. We couldn't stay long in this oasis because we had a mission: to find a few presents for Zachary and a Christmas ornament for us. Randi and I add a Christmas ornament every year symbolising our most interesting experience of that year. Shockingly, the exit from St Peter's will take you directly to its enormous, two-level gift shop where almost anything tangential to St Peter's or Catholicism itself will be found. There are numerous souvenir/gift shops all over the vicinity but this is the official one, the one the Pope himself uses to purchase tchotchkes for the Vatican Palace. We spent quite a bit of time in this Temple of modern commerce seeking something specific for Zachary that Randi had in mind but with no success. We did find our ornament (putti) fairly quickly and escaped the overcrowded madhouse. Walking back towards Rome we found several more souvenir shops to poke around in and through diligence and hard work found two fitting for Zachary. One was a fairly common item that you can find all over town: a small terracotta version of La Bocca della Verita (The Mouth of Truth), an ancient marble sewer cover fastened to the wall of the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin which I will further discuss when we get there. Those of you who saw the Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn movie, Roman Holiday, will know what I am talking about without having to wait. The other was surprisingly rare, especially for something so obviously stylish, tasteful, and elegant. We had been strenuously seeking out one of these beauties since we had arrived with no luck but our efforts were finally rewarded when we came upon a snow globe of the Pope. Zachary will be the only one in his lab with one and will surely be the envy of his 60

colleagues. Perhaps the greatest pleasure of visiting a major European city such as Rome is walking all about. While we made good and necessary use of the Metro in Paris, the significant parts of Rome, like Florence, are compact and normally require no vehicular help to get around. Rome with its unique capacity to surprise is above all a walking city. For days now, especially in this persistent heat, Randi has tried to get me into a taxi or on a bus to save my diminishing powers of ambulation but I was stubborn, a rare event for me. But 35° has finally gotten to me and after we completed our souvenir hunt we looked in several shops for a decent bus map, one that I could usefully follow even as the Romans do not fetishise schedules. Finally we found what appeared to be a mildly functional booklet of the baffling bus system. The two-line subway is rarely helpful as it is forced to skirt the Campius Martius and Trastevere, our two most common haunts. By now you understand why tunnelling in ancient Rome will only result in the discovery of ancient buildings and streets and the permanent stoppage of work. Now with our map, if a target was across town we had some vague idea of which bus to take there and how to find it. On most occasions, anyway. The other instances we took a taxi, which is much simpler if considerably more expensive. It was time for lunch and as we walked back on the Via del Governo Vecchio towards the Palazzo Olivia Randi, as is her method, looked left and right up the side streets and alleys to see if she could discern a new and interesting place to eat. She did well today and found a lovely restaurant about one-half block down the narrow Via Monte Giordano which opened into a small Piazza. Its patio consisted of a number of long, wooden tables under a canvas tent awning which was embellished with working ceiling fans, a detail more noteworthy for us than a good review on Trip Advisor. This was the Cucina Romana Antica Taverna (the Tavern of Ancient Roman Cooking) and they healed us with two luscious salads accompanied by bread; Randi's with cheese, tomatoes, fresh basil, mushrooms, and anchovies while Steven chose one with cantaloupe, shrimp, and crab. For perhaps the only meal in Rome we had no wine -- too hot -- but the large litre bottle of carbonated water (acqua gassata) definitely hit the spot. 61

A nice supplement to the fine meal was the intelligent conversation we eavesdropped on by four young people sitting adjacent to us. They were discussing the topic of gays in the American military and their debate was on a fairly elevated level, considering the idiocy we usually overhear from the mouths of North American tourist babes. I sincerely thanked them for their stimulating exchange when we departed, thus providing them with an superb reminiscence to tell the grandchildren. After a brief stop at the neighbourhood grocery for restorative liquids (juices, lemon soda, and wine) we gratefully returned to the Palazzo Olivia for air conditioning and a nap. It was fairly late by our usual standards, almost 2, but we had no particular plans for this afternoon or evening and enjoyed both the drinking and the sleeping. We awoke refreshed and ready to stroll around the Centro Storico for a few hours to see what we could see. There were the usual Piazzi and Palazzi and walls that hadn't been painted since the days of the Caesars and packs of tour groups of mostly disinterested teenagers waiting for the sun to go down so they could dance and drink and party. When we arrived in the Piazza Colonna there was so much to see that we spent about an

hour there. While tourists tend to use the wedding cake memorial on the Campidoglio or the Piazza Navona or the Pantheon as their central axis of reference when wandering Rome, the locals view the Piazza Colonna, located at approximately the midpoint of the Corso, as the centre of Rome. Its name obviously derives from the Column (colonna) of 62

Marcus Aurelius which was placed there by his son Commodus, one of the more psychotic of emperors, in 196 A.D He constructed it in obvious imitation of the Column of Trajan that had been erected in the Forum some seventy years earlier. In bas relief that winds and spirals up the 29.62 m (c. 100 feet) column of twenty-eight blocks of Carrara marble it tells the embellished story of his father’s victory over the Germans at the Danube River. Some have complained that diverting traffic away from the Piazza has robbed it of life but its raw materials, including the ancient centerpiece, three imposing Palazzi on three sides, a baroque church on the fourth, and a fountain made for us a most agreeable experience that speeding and cacophonous Vespas and buses would not at all have enhanced. During the Middle Ages pilgrims would visit the Piazza Colonna to climb the 203 steps of the spiral staircase inside the Column of Marcus Aurelius to admire the view from the top. Every year the column was put up for sale to the highest bidder and in what were usually rigged contests the monks of San Silvestro in Capite would win and fix the prices as high as the market would bear. It became a major source of income for the enterprising monastery. I have read that it is still possible to climb the column (with written permission from the Superintendent of Monuments) but the idea has absolutely no appeal. Can you just imagine the temperatures inside? The fountain in the Piazza Colonna is one of a group erected at the time of Pope Gregory XIII to distribute the water of the Acqua Vergine aqueduct to some of the more popular Piazzi of the city. It was completed in 1577 from a design of Jacopo della Porta and possesses an enormous basin of Porta Santa marble, gracefully carved. Beneath its rim are sixteen beautiful, if often overlooked, lions’ heads carved by Rocco Rossi a few years later. The Colonna fountain is a typical low-pressure child of the Vergine aqueduct which is fed by a fat, bubbling jet of water that springs from a central table-like decoration that rises in the centre of the main basin. The flow is adjusted so that the water streams over the edge in a veil like a cloth of the finest and most transparent silk. Two curious objects like cannonballs rise at water level, bubbling to help keep the water agitated.

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Two other mildly interesting factoids about the Piazza Colonna: because of its central location it became the meeting place of farmers from the Campagna (rural and agricultural areas around Rome) who would hire farm workers that congregated there, like modern day labourers waiting for the trucks to pick them up for day labour. Also for many years the Piazza Colonna was the only place in Rome were coffee might be roasted. When first introduced into Europe the smell of roasting coffee was considered unpleasant. Therefore the fountain was in those days surrounded by portable stoves and kitchens where, on fires of coal or wood, the cafe proprietors would bring their sacks of berries to be roasted. Only one of the Palazzi in the Piazza is of some interest and worthy of a few words. The oldest of the three on the Piazza is the Palazzo Chigi, for many centuries owned by the immensely wealthy Florentine banking family that handled holy money for the papacy. It was originally built in 1587 for Pietro Aldobrandini, whose good fortune it was to be the brother of Pope Clement VIII, and was designed by Giacomo della Porta. Its front facade faces the Corso and is notable mainly for the positioning of its windows which cluster towards the centre, thus departing from the accepted absolute regularity of the Palazzo Farnese. Oddly, its side facade (pictured above), which faces the Piazza, returns to the Farnese model. The Chigi brothers purchased the Palazzo and changed its name in the middle of the seventeenth century. It has since served as the Austrian embassy and is now the residence of Italy's prime minister. It is but a short stroll - with bodyguards of course -- for the Prime Minister to go to work of a morning in the Italian parliament which is around the corner in the Piazza Montecitorio), the Palazzo Montecitorio. 64

This was built on a small rise that was created by a dump of old materials during the Middle Ages. As a result of feuds among the nobles, this whole district fell into the power of the wealthy Colonna (no relation to the Colonna of Marcus Aurelius or its Piazza) family and was utilized for ornamental and vegetable gardens up until 1650 when the Ludovisi family commissioned the omnipresent Gianlorenzo Bernini to build them a residence. As you must be able to guess by now Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi was the "nephew" of Pope Gregory XV, from whence his fortune arose. Our old friend Bernini, as we now know as the quintessential Roman Baroque architect, succeeded in using the lie of the land to determine both its structure and its decoration. The building's façade with its gentle curve follows the slopes of this man-made hill and the rough-hewn stone elements, from which broken branches and leaves are protruding, make the building appear to be constructed within the very rock itself. The work was interrupted because the Ludovisi family had financial difficulties; it was taken up again and finished 30 years afterwards by Pope Innocent XII who intended to use the building for the Pontifical Curia, the highest papal administrative body of justice. The tripledoored entrance is surmounted by a wall belfry equipped with three bells, the largest of which was used to signal school and office hours. The obelisk in front of the Palazzo Montecitorio was placed there by Pope Sixtus V who, in a very brief term of office, erected more obelisks in more places than all of the other popes combined. It has served as home for the Chamber of Deputies since the unification of Italy and the decision to place its capital in Rome in 1870. Except for its facade the entire Palazzo’s interior has been totally renovated in the twentieth century. It contains many brilliant works of art which, due to the purpose of the Palazzo, are rarely available for public viewing. It was now feeding time for our geriatric narrator and we set off in search of inspiration. It was a bit later than usual and there were many inconsiderate bottoms on restaurant patios who had inconsiderately arrived earlier. We had a memory of a lovely, narrow, candlelit street with several restaurants lined up with their bustling patios and where we had enjoyed a lovely meal in 2007. We recalled that it was in the general area of the Pantheon and some research made the Via Pastini the likeliest suspect so we headed northeast of Hadrian's magnificent construction. Unfortunately, this area did not seem familiar so we marched up and down looking for a likely harbour in which to eat. We chose Trattoria Antonio because I had read some good things about it on some review websites (first mistake). Unfortunately, we 65

wound up having the worst meal experience in all of our visits to Rome. For starters, there were no seats remaining on the patio so we were forced inside (second mistake). We stupidly sat down (third mistake) -- I guess we were very hungry -- even though the only other residents of the interior were a large group of Northern European families which included about five or six bored teenagers who wandered about while their parents enjoyed a leisurely wine and conversation. On the whole they were just kids, and not bad ones, but as such they were quite noisy and distracting. Then we ordered (fourth mistake). It is not easy to find bad food in a Roman restaurant, no matter the cost point. At Antonio we found very bad food indeed. We split a miserable appetiser of tuna and beans with something they referred to as tomatoes, something in which they were clearly mistaken. How is it possible for a Roman restaurant to serve pale, mealy tomatoes in July? Lucky Randi ordered the best thing of the night, meat-filled ravioli in a crushed tomato sauce. Steven had a malnourished chicken which they forgot to serve with an electron microscope so he could actually see it, and which they managed to overcook. However, the accompanying roasted potatoes were quite edible. Another lesson learned: "air conditioning" is often promoted on a banner out front of restaurants but its definition is quite flexible. Sometimes it refers to an open window, with or without ceiling fans. There is also an interesting system whereby a superfine mist of water is sprayed out over the patrons which seems appealing but, trust me, it mostly makes you wet and waters down your wine. In general, don't expect to come upon genuine, 100%, North American air conditioning in a Roman restaurant. No matter what it promises out front. We went for a bit of a walk to help the deficient dinner move along the digestive system as quickly as possible. This is when we had one of those miracles of a Roman surprise. We were wandering through another narrow and routine Roman square, the Piazza di Pietra (Piazza of Stone), when Randi noticed a set of enormous columns on one side. We had no idea what these were once part of, but they certainly were much older than the prosaic building which they now fronted. Later that night we hit the books and found that we had discovered the Temple of the Deified Hadrian which had been constructed by that Emperor's successor, Antoninus Pius, in 145 A.D. It had been quite a large project built upon a 4 m podium (still present, but well under the current street level like so many other Roman undertakings) 66

with forty-eight large (15 m tall) Corinthian columns. It once was embellished by numerous statues and trophies but those that haven't been long destroyed have been

distributed among five different Italian museums. Only eleven columns have survived, those that once made up the Northern side of the Temple. They still function, supporting the building’s roof, but they are unrestored, ravaged by time, and in places brutally bruised and hacked. At the end of the 17th century Pope Innocent XII commissioned the brilliant architect Carlo Fontana with the construction of a new papal customs office at the site of the Deified Temple of Hadrian. Fontana, who worked with his son Francesco on the project, integrated the remaining columns of the temple in the new building, which was completed in 1700 after ten years of construction. Perhaps, an early example of gentrification. Today it houses the Borsa Valori di Roma, Rome's stock exchange. This is one of Rome's most poignant ruins, and all the more evocative for being still in everyday use. For us, coming across such an unanticipated and startling sight is one of the core pleasures and treasures of visiting Rome. It was quite late and we finished our night as we always did by walking through the glorious Piazza Navona with its bustling activity, bravura fountains, and many buskers, many of real talent. All roads in Rome lead to a gelateria and there, save for our apartment with real air conditioning, was our last stop on this Thursday night. 67

Venerdì, 16 luglio San Clemente and the Caelian Hill We're awake without an alarm clock this morning but as we were headed across town, to the Caelian Hill (Monte Celio), we moved along with our routines fairly quickly until, that is, we tried to find the number eighty-seven bus in a location where our new bus map said it would be. Some wandering around the area of the Corso del Rinascimento found that indeed it does travel northward on that main drag that runs parallel to the Piazza Navona but as we were going south east, we were forced to triangulate to find the correct bus stop. Eventually we did find that cute little bus, which was quietly electric, and it transported us back into history, allowing us to sightsee the route in air-conditioned comfort. But first, of course, it was cappuccini and cornetti. We found a nice little bar with a nice little patio. Our new tradition of standing inside at the bar had lasted exactly one morning. It was approximately 30 m from the Colosseum which is one of the most instantly recognisable ruins in the world. Randi, who is both navigator and writer-down-of-informationfor-later-use made a conventional mistake in

documenting the name of our coffee provider. Her notes called it the ―Bar Tavola Calda‖ but you can find that name on just about any food server as it is simply Italian for "warm table" which just tells you that they cook food there. So the actual title of that bar is tragically lost forever to history. It reminds me of the time I spent about two months in Copenhagen in 1973 and found myself leading some tour groups around town. When we entered the city's major cemetery, Assistens Kirkegaard, where, among

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others, the physicist Niels Bohr and the storyteller Hans Christian Andersen are at rest, I shot off my uninformed mouth by telling them that it is named after the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard who is also buried there. This was followed by a brief lecture which covered all I knew about this dour Dane and his ideas -- which took about two minutes. Turns out I was right about the deep thinker’s final home, lucky guess, but when we passed another cemetery a few minutes later it too was labelled "Kierkegaard‖ which, my amused Danish friends later informed me, was simply Danish for "churchyard." Monte Celio is one of the original Seven Hills of Rome and perhaps one of the least visited by tourists as, on the whole, Roman history long ago passed it by. In imperial times the Caelian developed into an exclusive area where wealthy families lived in large villas with gardens. When the 17-year-old Emperor Nero came to the throne, he erected a temple on the Caelian's slopes dedicated to his predecessor, Claudius (in whose death he may have had a hand). Foundations and arches from the temple can still be seen to the west of the Via Claudia, just above the Colosseum. Our choice of the Caelian was dictated by the presence there of the Basilica of San Clemente. In preparing for this visit I came across it in several sources and it quickly rose to the tippy-top of our prioritised list. Similar to the Necropolis beneath St Peter's and the Largo Argentina beneath its numerous bus stops, one of its claims to our attention is that it consists of, in sedimentary layers, three religious edifices of disparate eras. This ancient church was transformed over the centuries from a private home and site of clandestine Christian worship in the first century to a grand public Basilica by the 6th century, reflecting the emerging Roman Catholic Church's growing legitimacy and power. In the late 1st century AD, an insula (apartment building) and Domus (wealthy man's private home) were built here, separated by a narrow Roman street. These were built atop of earlier structures that were destroyed in the great fire of 64 AD during the reign of Nero. A Christian community is believed to have met in the Domus by the 2nd century. The community was known as the titulus Clementis, which according to custom was probably named for the owner of the Domus.

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In the early 3rd century, the inner courtyard of the insula was converted into a Mithraeum, or Temple of Mithras. Mithras was a sun god of Persian origin whose cult was for men only and involved secret initiation rituals in small, cave-like structures. Like the Masons? Some years later, a large hall was built over the inner courtyard and ground floor rooms of the adjoining Domus. It may have been built with the express purpose of housing the Christian community. Not long afterwards Christian persecution ended under Constantine and Christianity became the official religion of the empire and the clandestine hall became a full-fledged church. The existing hall was converted into a Basilica under Pope Siricius (384-99), which is recorded on the dedicatory inscription to the left of the entrance. Changes included the addition of an apse, a narthex and an atrium, the walling in of openings in its sides, and the creation of a nave and two aisles by the addition of two colonnades. Increasing veneration of Clement of Rome, combined with the name of the titulus already meeting there, led to the dedication of the church to St. Clement. It was restored in the 6th, 8th, and 9th centuries; frescoes were added during each restoration. The church was badly damaged during the Norman sack of Rome in 1084. Even before the Normans arrived, though, it had already sunk to 5 meters below street level and was not structurally sound. It was therefore abandoned and Pope Paschal II (1099-1118) constructed a new church above it in 1108.

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The hero of our story is Father Joseph Mullooly, the Irish born Prior of San Clemente’s attached monastery, who became convinced, in 1857, for architectural reasons, that the existing twelfth century Basilica could not possibly be the original church on the site and that if he began to excavate underneath he would find evidence of an earlier undertaking. Imagine his surprise when he not only discovered that his learned instincts (he would probably have credited divine inspiration) were correct but that there was still another, more ancient, place of worship underneath the fourth century Basilica. He found three separate layers of buildings, comprising the ruins of a fourth century church that had been built atop a complex of pre-Christian buildings that had in turn been built upon the rubble of buildings destroyed in the Great Fire of 64 A.D. (the one during which Nero supposedly fiddled). It was an extraordinary experience for Randi and me to enter what was a magnificent mediaeval church with splendid apse mosaics, a spectacular baldacchino, a remarkable candlestick in the spiral shape of the first St Peter's columns, and a fine Cosmatesque floor. The apse mosaic (pictured below) is particularly interesting because it is given over almost entirely to a single design conceit: The Tree of Life. With its fifty swirling coils of vines the mosaic possesses a decorative quality that is almost abstract. The cross upon which a rather undersized Christ is suffering grows out of an unexpectedly prominent acanthus plant, a pagan rather than a Christian motif. Even the Putti recall pagan cupids. It is likely that these anachronistic details were copied from the apse of the earlier church as they reflect more of a fourth century than a twelfth century viewpoint.

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To get to the earlier church as well as the Mithraeum all that is required is to pay an entry fee and to walk down lighted steps to the well-cleared lower levels. We were intrigued well enough by the well-preserved frescoes in the lower, fourth century, church but it was the Mithraic Temple complex of the second or third century that had been built into a converted Roman house of the first century that was the highlight of San Clemente. Three separate rooms have been excavated thus far (work continues to this day): the Temple pronaos (the entrance room), the Triclinium (the dining room containing the Mithraic altar), and the schoolroom which was used for instructing prospective initiates. The ruins of both underground religious edifices were well marked with several explanatory wall plaques nearby, were lit adequately but 72

not overpoweringly, and had walkway coverings to prevent slipping on the damp floor. We had entered through a side door, not knowing any better, but exited better through the front door into a peaceful courtyard which, like all three layers, was below the current street level requiring a walk up some flights of stairs to rejoin the present. Our next destination was the great papal Basilica of San Pietro ad Vincoli (St Peter in Chains) but to get there we had to walk around this large, I would almost term it colossal, ruins of the Flavian Amphitheatre which had been constructed by Vespasian and his son Titus and completed in 80 A.D. It became known as the "Colosseum" because of a rather large statue of Nero that had been moved alongside. We will not be discussing this extremely wellknown ruin in this volume because Randi and I had entered it on previous trips and saw no need to join the endless line of tourists, all armed with cell phone cameras, to visit it again. If you doubt the magnitude of the Colosseum, I challenge you to walk around it. We did find quite worthy of note the nearby patch of greenery, Il Parco Traiano, which was named for the Emperor Trajan who had built his baths here. The chronology requires a bit of history. Following the fire of 64 the Emperor Nero (who was way out of town during the conflagration and, further to his defence, fancied himself more of an actor and charioteer than fiddler) took advantage of the instantaneous urban renewal and chose to build his modest Palace upon the ruins of the neighbourhood. It was this specific act of his that caused his suspicious subjects to conclude that he had indeed created his own opportunity. But now Nero had an opening to build a new and grand structure. He began his new palace immediately and continued to enhance it until his death four years later in 68 A.D. It spanned the Esquiline and Palatine Hills but also occupied most of the Caelian Hill as well. It even replaced his own Temple of Claudius the God, which he had demolished. The not overly precise historian of Roman Imperial nobility, Suetonius, described the Domus Aurea (Golden House) which had been built by the finest architects of the time, Severus and Celer, thusly: "A huge statue of Nero, 120 feet high, stood in the entrance hall; and the pillared arcade ran for a whole mile. An enormous pool, more like a sea than a pool, was surrounded by buildings made to resemble cities 73

and by a landscape garden consisting of ploughed fields, vineyards, pastures, and woodlands. Here every variety of domestic and wild animal roamed about. Parts of the house were overlaid with gold and studded with precious stones and mother of pearl. All the dining rooms had ceilings of fretted ivory, the panels of which could slide back and let a rain of flowers or of perfume from hidden sprinklers, fall on his guests. The main dining room was circular, and its roof revolved slowly, day and night, in time with the sky. Sea water, or sulphur water, was always on tap in the baths.‖ When the palace had been decorated throughout in this lavish style, Nero dedicated it and condescended to remark, "Good, now I can at last begin to live like a human being." Nero has been given a bit of a bad rap by history and was far from the worst of the Roman emperors. Consider two of his predecessors who were far more violent and weird: Tiberius and Caligula. However his narcissistic hijinks, especially in the theatre and the circus, had made him somewhat unpopular and the enormity and opulence of this new palace, built upon homes of ordinary Romans that had burned down, was the tipping point. Romans were indeed impressed with this manse, but did not approve of it. Nero's lifestyle made his house an easy target for criticism. The Domus Aurea became a symbol of the decadence that motivated Nero's immoral acts. The artificial lake, the rotating ceiling, the misting unguents, and the 120 foot tall statue of Nero himself (the "Colossus Neronis," with a different head, that of Helios, the Sun God, when it was moved adjacent to the Flavian amphitheatre) all simply reminded the Romans of the outlandish extravagance of Nero's regime. The historian Tacitus wrote that Nero

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had transgressed the sacred boundaries of nature by building out of the ashes of a burned city a country villa complete with artificial lakes, transplanted vineyards, and imported animals. Nero was on the run and when things got hopeless in 68, he committed suicide. His successor, Vespasian (actually, there were three who served but a few months each in between but they don't count), made the politically correct decision to demolish the entire unloved monstrosity and built his amphitheatre on the drained location of Nero's artificial lake. Little remains above ground, just a few walls that had been incorporated into Trajan's baths, but in the fifteenth century some remnants were discovered underground and it became a favourite pastime of Renaissance Romans, including Raphael, to drop down a hole with a lantern to view and copy some of the frescoes that had survived. We were unable to view any of this because the ruins are prone to flooding which destabilises them requiring continuous shoring up. When there are torrential rains in Rome, tourists lose the opportunity to visit the Domus Aurea for as long as two or three years afterwards. Bummer. As we wandered through the Parco Traiano, which is not particularly impressive and would certainly not pass muster in Paris’s Parks Department, the only items of interest were the walls remaining from Trajan's Baths (Terme Traiano) that popped up all over the park. Using the ruins of the Domus Aurea as a handy foundation Trajan had built his enormous Bath complex, which eventually covered 10,000 m² (107,600 square feet). These baths were designed by Trajan's architect, Apollodorus, and would later become the model for all the great imperial baths. The complex comprised gymnasiums, saunas, hot, cold, and tepid baths, a large swimming pool, massage rooms, libraries, gardens and areas for meeting and conversing. Roman baths originally provided citizens a place in which to wash; they soon transformed into a favourite location for socializing and doing 75

business for a population that enjoyed 180 holidays a year. Admission was either free or it cost next to nothing, guaranteeing access to all social classes. People whiled away entire afternoons in one of the 800 Roman baths that coexisted during the Empire. By this time we were so hot and sweaty that we were ready for a half hour dip in the frigidarium but we were still en route to the Basilica of San Pietro ad Vincoli and, after we finally found the right exit from the Parco Traiano, we soon found ourselves in front of the massive but rather inelegant and graceless papal church. This is one of four patriarchal Basilicas that have been required stops for pilgrims in Rome for centuries. The others are St Peter’s in the Vatican, St Paul Outside the Walls (Basilica Papale di San Paolo fuori le Mura) and Santa Maria Maggiore. It is a famously disappointing destination for the numbers that draw near it. It attracts more visitors than any other church in Rome except St Peter's itself. Art lovers know it as the location of Michelangelo’s monumental statue of Moses (really, the only reason we are here), pilgrims know it as a repository for the iron chains that allegedly bound St Peter himself, and tour guides know it as the only church in downtown Rome with an accessible parking lot big enough to hold ten buses at the time. The result is an endless stream of sightseers as the drone of the tour guides lecturing their captive audiences never lets up. The interior is itself inhospitable consisting of grey walls, grey floors, grey columns, and a grey vault. Only the nave ceiling painting of Baroque extravagance relieves the prevailing air of drab invisible gloom. Worst of all is the polished travertine floor laid in the 1950s that sucks the life out of the twenty-two beautifully preserved antique nave columns. It was fitting that this Basilica was populated by nagging functionaries whose only job seemed to be to quiet everyone and to tell them where to stand. They may have once worked in my childhood movie theatres during Saturday matinees. Ssssh.

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Historically, it does have some interest. It was one of the tituli, Rome's earliest parish churches, and was built over the remnants of an Imperial Villa in 442 supposedly to house the chains that had bound St Peter in Jerusalem. It was first restored by Pope Adrian in the eighth century and later enlarged by the Renaissance popes Sixtus IV and Julius II, with further -- and miserable -- renovations in the modern era. The chains, not particularly impressive to my eyes, are contained in a reliquary at the front altar. I suppose I have difficulty with all holy relics because of their extremely questionable provenance and their practice of replicating themselves all over the world. However, the opportunity to stand in close proximity to Michelangelo's Moses goes a long way to justifying a visit to this otherwise dowdy Basilica. I recently wrote an extended chapter on Julius II’s megalomaniacal plans for a tomb that ultimately led to the upsizing of St Peter's in the Vatican and how that Pharaonic undertaking was continually put off by both Julius and his heirs. The remnants of that tomb were unveiled here (St Peter in Chains was Julius's titular church when he was a Cardinal) in 1547 representing a sad end to an illstarred project that had dragged on for four decades. The remainder of the truncated tomb is not particularly successful. Its various statues, all viewed head-on, are noticeably out of scale with one another and even Michelangelo's other two contributions (the figures of Rachel and Leah) seem dwarfed by the imposing Moses between them. And the placement of the figure of Moses itself is highly problematical. It was sculpted with the intention of being placed significantly higher as Michelangelo conceived the figure for a position many feet above our heads. Michelangelo well understood the problems of prospective diminution and 77

the apparent distortions in the figure of Moses chiefly derive from his desire to accommodate the statue to the position of the onlooker well below. That being said, we were well pleased by what we were confronted with this morning. The extraordinary force of this figure, the tension in the veins and muscles, the posture and the furious expression, have rightly made this Moses one of the most admired masterpieces of all time. It depicts the prophet in his glaring rage as he returns from his meeting with God with the tablets of the Ten Commandments. As it is described in Exodus 32:19, ―And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.‖ A brief note about the horns: this was a common mediaeval Western depiction of Moses based on the description of his face as cornuta (horned) in the Latin Vulgate of Exodus. The Greek in the Septuagint translates as, "Moses knew not that the appearance of the skin of his face was glorified." The Hebrew Masoretic text also uses words equivalent to "radiant," suggesting an effect like a halo. Horns were symbolic of authority in ancient Near Eastern culture, and the medieval depiction had the advantage of giving Moses a convenient attribute by which he could easily be recognized in crowded pictures. Given all that information the blame cannot fairly be placed on Michelangelo for supplying horns on Moses’s head despite their appearing absolutely ludicrous. I can't adequately describe how it felt to stand but 1 m from such an astonishing creation of power, dignity (despite the horns), and beauty.

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Santa Pudenziana and Santa Maria Maggiore but not Santa Prassede The Via Merulana was constructed by that great builder Sixtus V as a straight, easy to navigate road that would ease the path of pilgrims going from the patriarchal church of St Peter in Chains to the patriarchal church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Pilgrims produced an enormous income for the Vatican -- and for Rome -and for a while back there in the Middle Ages commerce generated by thousands of pilgrims was the primary reason that Rome survived at all as a major city. It is also the street upon which Randi and I intend to reside after we win the lottery as it is tree-covered and broad. Let us know at least a week in advance when you intend to drop by. Our intention for the rest of this morning and afternoon was to try and visit three more churches: the mediaeval churches of Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Pudenzia, and Santa Prassede. This was more complicated than it sounds because of the erratic and incoherent opening times of most of Rome's churches. The patriarchal churches are the easiest to enter because they are continuously open from early morning until early evening. Most others usually open early in the morning but may close at 10 AM or twelve Noon and sometimes reopen (and sometimes not) for a few hours in the late afternoon. Opening hours on websites or even the front doors of churches are, in the Roman Way, suggestions. We hoped that if we could somehow time our visits properly we could see all three. And have lunch. Further problematic to this goal is that there were several things just off the Via Merulana that we wanted to see because we didn't expect to be back on the Caelian Hill, or the Esquiline, during our final week in Rome. The first of these is the Auditorium of Maecenas. Gaius Cilnius Maecenas (70 BC – 8 BC), an equestrian of ancient family and a wealthy descendant of Etruscan kings, was, along with Marcus Agrippa, the closest friend and adviser to the Emperor Augustus. He served his Emperor primarily in the political arena but was also granted the freedom and resources to gather about him the finest poets and dramatists of this time. Among those who benefited from his patronage were Horace and Virgil. Towards the end of his life 79

Maecenas lost favour with Augustus because of his lavish living habits and arrogance. A Roman statesman described him as ―of sleepless vigilance in critical emergencies, farseeing and knowing how to act, but in his relaxation from business more luxurious and effeminate than a woman." The Auditorium is all that remains from an elaborate complex known as the "Gardens of Maecenas‖ which were laid out over an ancient cemetery. It supposedly contained the first heated swimming pool in Rome as well as a tall tower. The structure was uncovered in 1874 as part of the clearing of land for a new Piazza. It probably survived destruction because it was set into an embankment behind the Servian Walls which defended the city. The Auditorium is 24 meters long and is divided into four parts: a vestibule to the south-east, consisting of a rectangular hall; the main hall; an exedra with steps; and a double ramp in tufa reticulate for access to the south-west of the complex, which was partly below ground level even at that time. The Auditorium (whose roof is recent) probably served as a summer dining room or banquet hall. Contemporary writers described an unusual feature of the interior: water cascaded down seven curved steps in the back of the dining hall. When Randi and I passed by, it was closed for visitors but its unusual shape and, typical of Rome, sudden and unexpected appearance, made it fascinating to circumnavigate. So far as I know the plastic chairs and table in the picture to the right are not original to the structure. Six statues, once in the niches, are long gone and probably forgotten. 80

The second item of interest just off our Via Merulana is the Arch of Gallienus, a well-preserved ancient city gate through which ancient visitors entered the city through first the Servian Wall and later the more extensive Aurelian Wall. It may be well preserved but I wouldn't want to stand underneath it during a mild earthquake, or even during the passing of a heavy truck. This Arch stands on the site of the Porta Esquilina in the Servian Walls. It was constructed in 262 AD by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius to honour the Emperor Gallienus. Originally this was a triple arch but the two smaller side arches are long gone. The remaining central arch, however, is a handsome construction, with an inscription along the top. It also looks like it's about to collapse. It kindly provided for us a nice ancient water fountain from which we could drink clear and cold aqueduct water and refill our bottles. We made one of our rare scheduling mishaps as we could have successfully completed our entire itinerary, including lunch, but we approached the churches in the wrong order and we never did get to see Santa Prassede. We had walked within a block of it but since it closed at noon, or thereabouts, by the time we were finished with Santa Pudenziana, which was open until one o'clock, we were out of luck. Stuff happens. That explains 81

why you will not see a report in this submission describing the magnificent Chapel of St Zeno which would have surrounded us on five sides with golden mosaics, a unique experience for this and just about any other city. Like the shuttered Prassede, Santa Pudenziana is one of Rome's oldest churches (some call it the oldest), a tituli. Also like Santa Prassede, it was named for one of the daughters of the Roman senator and early Christian martyr, Saint Pudens. According to tradition, he provided lodging for St Peter himself, who baptised him, and preceded Pudens onto the cross, courtesy of Nero. Pudens allegedly had two daughters, Prassede and Pudenziana, who were also martyred but their actual existence is highly suspicious and the churches, both of them, may well have been named for artificial saints. Eventually the Pope revoked their sainthood as easily as a driver's license. But they live on seemingly evermore in these churches. Santa Pudenziana is built over the house of St Pudens, which after the deaths of Peter and Paul was used as an illegal home church (titulus). Scholars have dated the first chapel, built in the bath, to c. 140. This fits with the tradition that claims that the first chapel was built by Pope Pius I. It was converted or rebuilt to a formal and dedicated church after tolerance was granted to Christians in the early 4th century. Most of the interior was thoroughly renovated in 1588, a tragic enterprise that removed several walls of fourth century mosaics so that Renaissance decorations could be installed. When it was refurbished again in the nineteenth century the Renaissance decorations were removed in their turn but there were no fourth century mosaic tiles lying around to be reattached.

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Fortunately the Renaissance idiots did not remove the apse mosaic, the oldest pictorial church mosaic in Rome, dating from 390. Its theme is "Jerusalem the Golden" and it depicts Christ enthroned sitting beneath a bejewelled cross and carrying a book bearing the inscription, "The Lord preserves the Pudentiana’s church." To either side the apostles (dominated by St Paul (left) and St Peter (right)) are about to be crowned with laurel wreaths by the fictional lassies, Pudenziana and Prassede. It is not difficult to see the nineteenth century patches in the mosaic. The left side of Christ's throne is original, the right side modern. It is unknown who was criminally responsible for the mutilation that completely obliterated the mosaic’s outer and lower sections during the Renaissance restoration. Despite its problematical condition, the mosaic remains unique among Roman mosaics in that its Christian theme is stated within a Classical composition and details. The togas are a bit of a giveaway as are the portrait like features of the faces. The Rome of the Senate and the Caesars can still be felt very strongly. These dual characteristics place the fourth century mosaic at a pivotal point in the history of art, on the very cusp between the ancient and the mediaeval. The facade dates from 1870, when the outer courtyard and staircase were constructed (the oldest Roman churches tend to be below modern ground level). This replaced an undistinguished single-windowed facade constructed during the 1588 renovation. Only the columns flanking the entrance door and the carved frieze above it are genuinely mediaeval. It is a quietly effective evocation of the church's distant past,

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accomplished without too much show or too much Victorian fantasising about the Middle Ages. We were ravenous and chose to eat rather than to continue our self-flagellation about stupidly missing out on Santa Prassede. Randi had spotted, during our morning church hunting expeditions, a lovely little ristorante on a side street with a charming outdoor patio, necessarily in the shade, and had put it in her memory bank for future use. This was the L’Angolo di Napoli (The Angle, or Corner, of Naples). We shared still another Insalata Caprese (gotta eat those tomatoes while they are still red) and an Insalata Pugliese which contained tuna, artichoke hearts, and, of course, bright red and flavourful tomatoes. The Italians have a liqueur, limoncello, which is made from Sorrento lemon peels, of which I was wholly unfamiliar. However, I am addicted to lemons and the fact that it is served chilled closed the deal. The waiter appeared confused when we ordered it before the meal (it is considered a digestif) but we insisted and he tolerantly acceded. A most understandable exception to my standard "when in Rome…‖ philosophy of travelling. We made it up to the waiter by ordering a litre bottle of cold gassata which we drank at the appropriate time. Now. It was a fabulous lunch in a lovely location and was a most worthwhile expenditure of 22 Euros. Since we returned home we have continued to buy the occasional bottle of Limoncello at our local LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) and still drink it inappropriately before dinner. There are twenty-six churches in Rome dedicated to the "Virgin" Mary but only one is named "greater" and that one is the patriarchal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. It is notable for its large size, its great age, and its special ecclesiastical status but architecturally it is far less noteworthy. Although the original building remains mostly intact over the centuries it has been so elaborately dressed up, redecorated in the interior and augmented on the exterior, that its ancient origins are all but impossible to discern.

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Like many major houses of worship there is a preposterous founding story. On August 4, 358 A.D. a wealthy but childless Roman couple decided that, to guarantee eternal bliss in heaven, they would bequeath their considerable fortune to the church in honour of the Virgin Mary. That night they were both visited by visions of the Virgin who instructed them to fund the construction of a church at a location that would shortly be marked by God atop the Esquiline Hill. The next morning they rushed to Pope Liberius to tell of their vision and, ché sorpresa!, he informed the couple that he had had the exact identical dream. Climbing the Hill to determine the content of God's telegram they found a patch of unmelted snow (in August!) that had miraculously fallen the night before, marking the spot where the church was to be built. The miracle is repeated annually every August 5th when white rose petals are scattered from the top of the dome to commemorate this snowfall, which has also given the church the alternative name of Santa Maria della Neve (Our Lady of the Snow). As we advanced on Santa Maria Maggiore from the North we both felt that a patch of unmelted snow would feel pretty good about now but there was to be no marvel this day. Approaching the front facade, only the fourteenth century bell tower (the tallest in Rome) suggests its venerable origins. The balance of the mediaeval structure is entirely obscured by a thick encrustation of later building projects that began during the Renaissance and culminated in Ferdinando Fuga’s entrance facade of 1740. As at all

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Basilicas a modern touch is applied by a group of mendicants sitting on the steps by the entrance, palms facing upward. Among Roman churches the interior of Santa Maria Maggiore is second only to St Peter's in its combination of size and splendour. Most of the decorative touches are relatively recent, dating from the Renaissance and later. It is often asserted that the vault of is gilded with the very first gold stolen by the Spanish civilisers from the pagan New World. Those seeking proof that the Basilica does indeed date back to the mediaeval period (and earlier) need to cast their eyes upward to the mosaics along the upper nave and on the ceremonial arch leading to the main altar which date from the fifth century and the mosaics of the apse and apse arch which date from around 1300. The individual panels of the earlier mosaics are clearly didactic in purpose and run along the nave almost as if they were lines of text spelling out their religious lessons in pictures rather than words. In the later mosaics the dependence upon storybook linearity has all but disappeared. Aesthetic effect has become a controlling consideration and the skill with which the mosaics’ various design elements are combined into a single unified composition makes the Tree of Life the most artistically satisfying of all Roman mosaics.

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Aside from these mosaics almost nothing of the original mediaeval structure is visible. Even the columns of the nave are not as they once were as the original unmatched miscellany of columns scavenged from earlier buildings were "updated" by Fuga who recarved them so they would appear identical. Santa Maria Maggiore is clearly Basilican in form reflecting the decision of the Emperor Constantine to adopt the traditional secular Roman form in the churches he built. It was Constantine who also differentiated churches from Roman Basilicas by adding the transept (first utilised at the original St Peter's) to transform the basic shape from rectangular to cruciform. It was not until the thirteenth century that Santa Maria Maggiore added a transept, later rebuilt into a pair of large and elaborate Baroque side chapels. We were unable to visit the finer of the chapels, the one dedicated to that great builder Pope Sixtus V, but it was unfortunately closed off for renovation. We were, however, free to spend as much time as we wished in front 87

of and around the glorious baldacchino designed by that same Ferdinando Fuga and constructed of porphyry and bronze around 1750. It is probably second in majesty only to Bernini's sublime baldacchino in St Peter's. Once again we found that navigating the Roman bus system was a complicated, perhaps fruitless, enterprise. Our useless new bus map showed us where #70 would theoretically take us directly from a few blocks North of the Basilica to the Piazza Navona and the apartment but the facts on the ground were not so uncomplicated. We walked around the Esquiline Hill and the Quirinal Hill in fruitless search for #70 finally arriving at the Hotel Opera where we had stayed in 2007 because we knew that it was next to the Via Nazionale where a different bus was supposed to stop. Shockingly, we actually found a bus stop and only had to wait about fifteen minutes in the broiling 37° heat for it to arrive and take us to the Corso Rinascimento which, if you recall, was where we couldn't locate a different bus this morning. We shopped at our grocery store and finally, exhausted and overheated, arrived for a placid rest at the Palazzo Olivia only to find that our room had apparently been rented, in our absence, to about 100 Pharaoh ants who were parading around the shower area in the bathroom. A quick visit to the manageress downstairs dispatched the charlady upstairs with a can of stinky bug spray which, under the circumstances, was an improvement. We could then nap contentedly in the knowledge that we would not be devoured to the bone during our air-conditioned rest. Afterwards we and the weather were both a tad cooler as we wandered about in a predinner stroll. We revisited the ruins of the Largo Argentina, found a few walking streets in the vicinity of Bernini's Minerva elephant statue and the Pantheon, and tried to find a few streets we had not yet discovered. The hunt for a dinner restaurant was complicated by one of Steven's occasional bouts of indecision where something was always wrong with this place or that place. When we finally found a patio Steven could find acceptable we were seated on a mild incline which was bad enough but the waitress then proclaimed that as soon as a couple at a poorly placed table for two were finished, she would move us there. Back to the chase …. It got so bad (these things have a way of feeding upon themselves) that we finally and stupidly settled into the patio of a heavily touristed restaurant directly on the Piazza Navona which at least had the advantage of a rather good view. However, like all restaurants on the Piazza, it was overpriced and underwhelming. Randi's spinach 88

ricotta ravioli was decent but Steven's Veal Marsala was dreadful. He dearly paid, in all ways, for his attack of inflexibility. The drinks (Randi: whiskey sour, Steven: Mimosa) were good as were the passing crowds of folks who probably did better for dinner than we had as were the upscale buskers playing jazz guitar and trumpet for the rich, lazy, and thick tourists. As with all evenings, tonight’s adventure endeth with a walk around and through "our" Piazza Navona, probably my favourite space in the whole world, not a particularly lengthy after-dinner trek. Our unfortunate run of food decisions culminated in obtaining our nightly allocation of gelato right on the Piazza, at the Ai Tre Tartufi, where Randi was yelled at by the cashier because her overloaded cone had collapsed and then overflowed onto her desk. The fellow behind the counter quickly replaced her cone with fresh gelato while his colleague continued to mutter imprecations in Italian. After our escape we listened for a while to a brilliant guitarist who was one of the finest buskers we had come across on the Piazza Navona. Then the 1 1/2 block walk to the Palazzo Olivia for some mediocre television and some wonderful sleep. Some of you will appreciate that I have managed to complete this busy Friday in but two chapters, albeit rather lengthy ones. I have promised you I would pick up the pace and I am an old man of my word. Lots of words. On to Saturday….

Sabato, 17 luglio

The Galleria Borghese and the Elusive #116 Bus This Saturday morning was marked by another alarm clock awakening because we had a ten o'clock appointment at the Galleria Borghese. This is one of the great art museums of the world and they quite know it. The system is thus: go online and choose a date and a time from the options provided and pay for your tickets. They permit access at two hour intervals and will not permit you to enter prior to your scheduled time or remain after it. At the end of your two hour period you, and everyone else who entered at 10 AM, are unceremoniously booted out so that the twelve noon mob can enter. It sounds rigid but as the Galleria is fairly small in size compared to its artistic

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riches their scheme allows for sufficient space and time for everyone to be aesthetically sated in relative ease. Once again we began a fruitless search for the bus that should take us directly to the Piazza Barberini, which is the source of the Via Veneto and the onset of our journey. According to my increasingly hopeless bus map #116 should be found on the trusty Corso Rinascimento. We began promisingly and found the southbound bus stop (the Corso is a major two-way connector) but the northbound was nowhere to be seen on its side of the street. So once more into the breach, dear friends, in search of a bus, any bus. (We later discovered that it flowed northbound one block to the East, something unmentioned in my @%#$%&)@^ bus map.) Over the past few days we had several #116 sightings, tootling along on various narrow streets but now that we required it, it was nowhere to be seen. Even a rigid old fart can learn from his past mistakes and after about ten minutes of aimless wandering through the desert we decided to chuck the bus and easily found a taxi at the stand adjacent to the Largo Argentina ruins which took us to the Piazza Barberini in about ten minutes for only €5.7, slightly more than double the bus fare but obviously well worth it. Our several experiences with taxis on this trip found the drivers to be unfailingly courteous and the taxis to be remarkably clean. Two thumbs up! The original name of this square was Piazza Grimana. It was named after Cardinal Grimani who had his villa and vineyards in this area. When the powerful (remember Pope Urban?) Barberini family built their Palazzo in this area the name of the square was changed to Piazza Barberini and it retains this name to date. It is a massive square with little charm and multi traffico. It has entirely been given over to the automobile and pedestrians cross it at their own risk. Unfortunately, because the Piazza also contains one of Bernini's finest fountains at its centre, surrounded on all sides by fast-moving automobiles and Vespas, we had to cross it to view the Fontana Tritone. Fortunately, this was an early Saturday morning and the Piazza was only a little perilous. Bernini’s Triton (1642-3) has been one of Rome's most famous characters for 3 1/2 centuries. Larger than life, he is seated upon the open hinge of a scallop shell; his head is well back, with a conch shell to his lips from which a tall jet of Acqua Felice (another shout out to Pope Sixtus V) shoots into the air, to return upon itself and 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 and so maintain the level. As it was 90

paid for by the Barberini Pope (and open-handed Bernini patron) Urban VIII and located in the Piazza Barberini you would expect to find a swarm of Barberini bees carved into the fountain and, sure enough, you do.

When my musings finally inspire you to get off your butts and to visit Rome you must rise not later than six in the morning to see the Triton before he is hemmed in by traffic. There is a print in the Museum of Rome at the Palazzo Braschi (which we visited later) and there you can see that as recently as 1845 the Triton presided over a simple countrified scene, standing in the centre of a narrow square with country carts filling the narrow side lanes. No longer. The Piazza Barberini lies at the foot of several key Roman streets including the Via Barberini, Via Sistina, and Via Vittorio Veneto, all of which contribute their share of irritating traffic. You may recall that ―our‖ 2007 restaurant was directly on the Via Sistina which led to the Spanish Steps. This morning, however, we are headed northwest and took the Via Veneto, the centre of Roman celebrity culture in the 50s and 60s, and a major setting for Federico Fellini's controversial and influential movie, La Dolce Vita (1960). The Via Veneto still contains luxurious hotels, expensive ristorante, a canopy of trees, and the American Embassy but the in crowd has moved on and it is no longer a fundamental target of paparazzi. Aside: did you know that this is not a traditional Italian word but is an eponym deriving from a character in La Dolce Vita, an insensitive and intrusive photojournalist named Paparazzo?

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At the start of the Veneto we find still another wonderful Bernini fountain in the middle of the sidewalk and therefore much safer to view. This is The Fountain of the Bees (Fontana delle Api) of 1644. As you must know by now the bee is the heraldic symbol of the Barberini family and consists of three bees displayed on an azure field. They are found all over Rome because of the continuous collaboration between Pope Urban Barberini and Gianlorenzo Bernini and the good sense of the latter to promote his patron’s plentiful gifts to Rome, which eventually bankrupted the papacy. The idea of a bee fountain occurred to Bernini when he was in his 20s and Urban’s delight with it inspired the artist to develop the idea and to design a more ambitious version some twenty years later. It has presided over the entrance to the Via Veneto only since 1919 when it was relocated from across the Piazza Barberini (on the Via Sistina) because its placement set against the wall of a house was disrupting coach and horse traffic and that has always been strecht forbuten on this Piazza. It was removed in 1887 and vanished for 32 years until its sudden reappearance in the characteristic manner of vanished Roman monuments. By the way while the Triton, only a few yards away, is fed by the Acqua Felice, the Bee Fountain receives its sustenance from the Acqua Pia Marcia, which has much less pressure. Bernini has placed the three 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 had settled into the hinge of a huge fan-shaped shell which carries a pontifical inscription to the effect that it was erected in 1644 by Pope Urban. It is a masterly exercise in the execution of what many sculptors would think an impractical, even a ludicrous, theme. In 2007 we had visited, at the base of the Via Veneto, the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, which is not where cappuccino was invented but was rather dedicated to the Capuchin Friars whose creamy brown cowls actually did provide the label for the heavenly coffee drink. This was a fun church whose lower-level consisted of several rooms decorated entirely by human bones in artistic poses. We did not return on this visit because we had other things to do but you might enjoy viewing their artwork on Google Images. Somehow, it wasn't ridiculous. "What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be," speaketh the bones.

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It was very easy on the lower section of the Via Veneto to find a reasonable place to enjoy that cappuccino with an accompanying cornetto. Among the many choices was the Gran Caffe Roma which, in order to justify a higher price on this ritzy street, served the cornetti warm, a very pleasant touch. Service was a tad slow but we were well ahead of schedule (we had anticipated difficulties finding the bus) so could leisurely enjoy the experience. As if to rub our noses into the bus schedule, we saw several #116 buses tootle by while we were breakfasting. Mocking us. Continuing up the Via Veneto we passed numerous hotels we could not afford, nor wish to stay in, countless covered patios serving overpriced meals, and the United States Embassy, the location, no doubt, of frequent demonstrations of one sort or another. By the way, we recently saw a documentary on the Italian designer Valentino, and he and his long-time life partner and business associate had met here in 1960, at the peak of Veneto madness. North Americans will never comprehend what they are missing when

it comes to the human side of urban living. The Via Veneto terminates in a rather confusing series of dead ends that butt up against the Aurelian city wall, an ancient city gate, and several other busy thoroughfares. We had to carefully pick our way across it, one traffic island at a time, until we reached the entrance to the Villa Borghese. To get to that park we had to traverse the Porta Pinciana, one of the lesser arrival terminals through which visitors from the north passed in Imperial Rome. The Porta 93

Pinciana was the starting point of the Salaria Vetus which joined the new road near the tomb of Lucilio Peto. When the Emperor Aurelian built his strengthened and expanded walls, the Porta Pinciana was just a posterula, a small opening; it was enlarged by the Emperor Honorius and strengthened again by Belisarius, the Byzantine general who had conquered Rome in 536. The gate was also known as the Porta Belisaria, because of a (lost) medieval inscription saying ―Date obolum Belisario” (give alms to Belisarius). According to legend, Belisarius fell into disgrace and the Emperor Justinian ordered him to be blinded and all his possessions confiscated; the great general spent his last years as a blind beggar at the Porta Pinciana. Carefully and safely we penetrated Aurelian’s Wall and entered Rome's finest park, the Villa Borghese. The area started out as a vineyard in the 16th century. In 1605 Cardinal Scipione Borghese, a "nephew" of Pope Paul V, turned the vineyard into a park. The landscaper Domenico Savino da Montepulciano designed a very formal park with geometric shapes, the first such park in Rome. It was later laid out in a more natural way. At the end of the 18th century an artificial lake was created in the middle of the park. On the island in the lake, a small Ionic temple was built. It is dedicated to Aesculapius, the God of healing. The 80 hectare (148 acre) Villa (in ancient times a Villa referred to a large estate located outside of city walls, not the Manor house placed upon it) Borghese is a quiet oasis of wide, shady lanes, several temples, beautiful statues relocated here from all over, and several art museums and public buildings. In 1903 the city of Rome obtained the Villa from the Borghese family and the park was opened to the public. It is a place where one slowly strolls, stopping every now and then to admire what is presented. While passing through the Villa Borghese towards the Galleria Borghese, we set our eyes on an authentic bus stop for the elusive #116 bus and jointly swore a sacred and enforceable vow that, after being ejected from the Galleria, we would return to the Palazzo Olivia inside the #116, or die in the attempt. But before this test of wills between us and the #116 we found ourselves in front of Cardinal Scipione Borghese’s modest homestead, the Galleria Borghese, which befitted his nepotic good fortune. It was constructed at the start of the seventeenth century on a site that had long belonged to the family and to which other pieces of land were gradually added to form the immense park about it. Of Sienese origin the Borghese family were recent arrivals in Rome who quickly, through the good fortune of having a fortune, attained for themselves a prominent position in Rome's aristocrat circles. They 94

won the lottery when the paterfamilias, Camillo Borghese, was elected to the papacy in 1605, taking the name of Paul V.

Two years after assuming the papacy his "nephew" Scipione began construction of his Villa on the Pincian Hill. It was designed by Flaminio Ponzio who had previously overseen the construction of the family Palazzo on the Campo Marzio. It was completed by the well-known Carlo Rainaldi in 1619. Scipione began to accumulate the works that were to form what would become the largest collection of its time in 1607. It began as pure theft. He seized over 100 works of art from the Cavelier d’Arpino, including two early Caravaggio's. That same year he managed to get his hands on a collection that had belonged to the patriarch of Aquileia and in 1608 the Sfondrato collection. The holy Cardinal continued on in this unscrupulous manner misappropriating works from the d’Este family of Ferrara and swiping a Raphael one dark night in Perugia. It has been asserted that the Galleria Borghese is more closely identified with the personality and passions of its creator than any other aristocratic residence. It was his original concept to create a home for his purloined art collection without any pretence of any other aim, a

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legitimate museum ahead of its time. It was also Scipione Borghese who transformed the conception of the Renaissance princely patron of the arts into a seventeenth century art collector. For the succeeding years Borghese heirs further refined and developed the collection and when it became necessary they renovated the Manor house creating the first museum in Italy to have organised its collection into a proper picture gallery, making each work perfectly visible and available to visits by anyone, not just specialists or papal nephews. It was a turnabout of fair play when, in 1807, over 500 pieces of ancient sculpture were sold under pressure by the contemporary Camillo Borghese, who had married Napoleon's sister, to the Emperor. The collection never was able to restore these losses and in 1902 the entire collection and the Villa itself were sold to the Italian state. We needed to pass the time, along with the 198 other visitors, until our ten o'clock starting time. There was a small snack bar and a bookstore that made honest money giving us something to do while we were waiting. Randi found a nice book, "The Galleria Borghese: The Masterpieces," which reminded us of what lay before us for the next two hours. Apart from the "masterpieces" contained within, it is the container itself that is a great part of the pleasures of the Galleria. Each room itself is a work of art with magnificently decorated walls, marvellous frescoes on the ceilings, and floors of boundless marble in geometric designs. The Galleria consists of two floors and the wise visitor will always began on the top storey because the majority will always hone directly in on the lower floor which contains, among other things, Bernini's sizeable statues of Apollo and Daphne, The Rape of Persephone, David, and Truth. So while 175 of the Museum goers are crowding around these, we have the paintings upstairs all to ourselves. When we are ready to go downwards, the mob below is crowding up the stairs to overcrowd the second storey. Excluding Bernini's astonishing statues which, because they were sculpted in these very rooms have never been moved (except from the wall to the centre), I have already

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described in some detail, I will just depict a few of the other treasures that will justify my glowing review. Tiziano Vecellio (called Titian): Sacred Love and Profane Love, 1514.

Michelangelo Merisi (called Caravaggio): David with the Head of Goliath, 1610.

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Roman: Mosaics with Gladiators, 320-330 AD

Antonio Canova: Portrait of Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix, 1805-08.

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This last demands a brief illumination. Pauline was the youngest sister of the Emperor who had been married off to one of Napoleon's finest officers. After losing both husband and son her brother then arranged another diplomatic marriage, to Prince Camillo Borghese, who was both a Jacobin and a French citizen and had held prestigious positions in the Napoleonic government. They were married a short while before separating and they were reunited only shortly before her death in 1825. She is buried in the Borghese Chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. The reclining beauty holds an apple in her hand evoking the Venus Victrix (Venus Victorious) in the judgement of Paris, who was chosen to settle a dispute among Juno (power), Minerva (arts and science), and Venus (love). The same subject was painted earlier on the ceiling above by Domenico de Angelis (1779) and was inspired by a famous relief on the façade of the Villa Medici. This marble statue of Pauline in a highly refined pose is considered a supreme example of the Neoclassical style. Antonio Canova executed this sculpted portrait without the customary drapery of a person of high rank, an unusual exception at this time, thus transforming this historical figure into a goddess of antiquity in a pose of classical tranquillity and noble simplicity. The wooden base, draped like a catafalque, once contained a mechanism that caused the sculpture to rotate, as is the case of other works by Canova. The roles of work of art and spectator were thus reversed as it was the sculpture that moved whilst the spectator stood still and observed the splendid statue -- and nude woman -- from all angles. In the past, viewers admired the softly gleaming sculpture of Pauline by candlelight and its lustre was not only due to the fine quality of the marble but also to the waxed surface, which has been recently restored. They may have been separated but Borghese retained her portrait, keeping it locked in a separate room so that he could gaze longingly at it without exposing his wife to the lustful stares of other men. Despite these precautions the sculpture became immediately famous (or infamous), provoking protests from Pauline who sought in vain for the rest of her life to take it away from her husband. As in a pub, ―time, gentlemen," came too quickly although two hours is reasonably sufficient to do justice to the collection. We exited en masse while our successors eagerly awaited their turns. We were fit and tan and ready to do battle with the #116. In less than 10 minutes a little electric bus tootled up and we managed to score two of the ten 99

seats in this tiny vehicle. It drove us through the Villa Borghese and through the Porta Pinciana in air-conditioned comfort. It was going well. Too well, it seems. Shortly after we passed through the gate the driver pulled off to the right, stopped, parked, and exited the bus without a word of explanation. None of the six of us on board wanted to exit because of the heat but instead yelled out the window to the driver who responded that it was time for her twenty minute break but that we were welcome to remain on bored while she chatted with other breaking and smoking drivers. Not one second before her twenty minutes were up she returned to the little bus. At this time an older woman (i.e., older than us) on the bus hastened up to the driver's partition and began to shriek at the driver in rapid-fire Italian. We did not require a translation. Several stops later she got off, but not before repeating her professional criticisms, gestures included. I don't know exactly what she said but she spoke eloquently for all of us. The little bus zigged and zagged along narrow cobblestone streets (which accounted for its miniscule size and itinerary) and past evocative and increasingly familiar buildings until we were delivered to our old friend, the Corso Rinascimento, two blocks from the Palazzo Olivia. After dropping us off it continued on its way to cross the Tiber and climb the Janiculum Hill. We picked up a couple of paninis at our corner sandwich shop and escaped the 37° afternoon into our comfortable, and antless, apartment for lunch and a nap, accompanied by the sweet music of a functioning air conditioner.

Our Thing Before we came to our senses and transferred our plans to the apartment at the Palazzo Olivia, we had reserved a nice room at the lovely Hotel Santa Maria, a renovated sixteenth century cloister. There were few complaints about the Santa Maria on the user travel review sites but one frequent observation focused on the annoying church bells of the main iglese, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, which was about one half block from the Hotel. It seems that it provided an alarm clock of sorts every hour on the hour all night long. ―Yet the ear distinctly tells/In the jangling/And the wrangling…/Of the bells/Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,/Bells,bells,bells/In the clamour and the clangor/ of the bells!‖ This was accented because there were no interior doors at the Hotel, all rooms opening directly onto the courtyard. In my researches into Trastevere I early on discovered that our term in Rome would be, in part, simultaneous to the annual festival, Festa de Noantri, held every year in that cross-Tiber neighbourhood of Rome. Given the central location of the Hotel I had some reason to fear that the festivities would create a great deal of noise, much of which 100

would filter into our room. While that is not the main reason we cancelled our reservations at the Hotel Santa Maria, it was a relief to know that when the Festa de Noantri was in full swing, we would be sleeping comfortably and peacefully on the other side of the River. The Festa has taken place on the first Saturday after 16 July for almost 500 years. On the first day of the festival, a richly dressed statue of the Virgin Mary is taken in a procession through the streets around the Church of Saint Agata and on towards the Basilica of San Crisogono. The statue is an ancient one, discovered in the Tiber in 1535. She was donated to the Carmelites at Crisogono, where she became the patron saint of Trastevere. In 1890 she was moved to another local church, Santa Agata. The return procession includes a journey across the Tiber, to commemorate the site of discovery of the image. The statue is taken in a boat from near Villa Giulia to Ponte San Angelo, where more people join the procession; then moves towards the Ponte Sisto, Isola Tiberina, and from thereon to Trastevere’s most important church, Santa Maria in Trastevere. The statue is then returned to its home in the Church of Santa Agata, on the following Monday. Numerous religious orders take part in the procession, including the ancient brotherhood from Trastevere, Arciconfraternita di Santa Maria dell’Oro and the Carmelite and Trinitarian fraternities. Over the years, new traditions have joined the old in the Festa de Noantri and since the 1920s music and theatrical performances have been incorporated into the celebrations. Later on, puppet and street shows were added. The title of the festival, Noantri, is from a Trasteverian dialect and derives from the local word, ―noialtri,‖ a strengthened form of "we." Essentially, it means ―Our Thing,‖ something local and meaningful to Trasteverians. The statue is given the name Madonna de Noantri and it is her physical movement from Santa Agata to San Crisogno on the opening night that is the central occasion, and raison d’etre of the festival. After awakening from our nap on this late Saturday afternoon, the first following 16 July, we decided to cross over the Tiber and to experience the goings-on, whatever they were. Initially we were somewhat disappointed as we had been trained by various movies set in New York's Little Italy during the Feast of San Gennaro (during which the young Vito Corleone assassinates Don Fanucci, the white-suited bully from the Black Hand, or where the small-time punks of Mean Streets cheat the smaller-time punks who want to buy fireworks) to expect bright lights hung over the streets, numerous food stands, constant music, and the procession wherein otherwise sentient folks place many dollar bills onto an inanimate statue.

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Trastevere is a fairly large locality but we knew that whatever was going to happen

would happen in the vicinity of its main church, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and its main street, the Viale di Trastevere. But aside from a few lights strung over the Viale, there was nothing to be seen. Fearing a major anti-climax, we chose instead to drown our sorrows in a nice dinner at our favourite restaurant of this 2010 trip, Alle Fratte di Trastevere (the Alley of the Holy Brothers of Trastevere). The owner, a pleasant and friendly man, exhibited his expertise in hospitality by 102

remembering us from previous visits, greeting us with a warm ―bona sera,‖ and seating us at "our" table adjacent to the Street. We felt obligated to celebrate the festival, even though we had seen few signs of it, by ordering both red wine and water and an appetiser, artichoke (carciofi) bruschetta. I had reordered the marvellous pasta dish, penne Siciliana, which agreeably adds mozzarella and eggplant to the home-made pasta and fresh tomato sauce. Randi chose a more adventurous rigatoni with pecorino (hard, Italian cheese) and thick-cut pancetta (salt cured pork belly -- a common street food of the Noantri festival) and was not disappointed. She finished with what Italians are supposed to finish dinners with, a small cup of espresso. Around the time we were finishing dinner we began to hear distant live music emanating from somewhere to the north-west and noticed that waiters and cooks from emptier restaurants in the block had come out of their holes to stand outside and wait. We immediately concluded that the Noantri procession was proceeding somewhere in our vicinity. We became positive when several police officers in various Graustarkian uniforms ambled by the Street adjacent to our table and took up positions up and down the block. The music grew louder because it was coming closer. We had lucked out! We had ringside tables to the opening procession! We had no idea that this would happen. At the end of the street it rounded the corner and moved, as it should, directly towards us. There were police officers on foot and on horse, what appeared to be soldiers, and then came the band playing something stately. There was a man with an electric bullhorn telling folks when to stop and when to move and who should be getting out of the way and he seemed to be taking directions from a self-important priest. Then there were more soldiers and more policemen and mostly old women praying as they moved along. Finally, the arrival of the leading lady. Men in full length brown robes sauntered along contentedly while their less fortunate brethren in long white robes huffed and puffed as they bore an immensely heavy load, the actual Madonna de Noantri, comfortably perched on a massive and highly decorated wooden canopy. A lucky man with a bell told these poor suckers when they could stop and lay their burdens down and when they had to pick it up again. There were seven men on each side, two in the front, and two in the rear. These eighteen bearers were none too few for the assigned task. The heat and the robes only added to the effort required and discomfort experienced.

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Following the wooden canopy was a mixed group of nuns in various colours of various orders and they were succeeded by another priest carrying a bullhorn and then many locals praying, chanting, and getting into a call-and-response thingy with the bullhorn priest. All this while Randi comfortably sipped her espresso. We called for ―il conto, per favore‖ and quickly paid the bill. In Italy, like most civilised European cultures, a tip is not expected because the gratuity is included in the menu price, but one usually leaves a Euro or so from the change if one is satisfied with the service. We decided that our evening entertainment would consist of catching up to the Madonna to try to see where she was going next. It wasn't difficult to find the procession having only to listen for the music and the grunting of the bearers ahead. We caught up just as the Madonna had reached her goal, the church of San Crisogono, which is dedicated to the martyr, St Chrysogonus. The current edifice is on the site of one of Rome's earliest Christian churches, a titulus built in the fourth century by Pope Sylvester I and rebuilt 800 years later. What we see now was constructed with money from our old friend Scipio Borghese in the early seventeenth century. 104

Recent excavations have uncovered ruins of the fourth century church but they are not yet available for public viewing. The interior is a typical mishmash of various centuries. Most of the interior is from the seventeenth century renovation but the confessio in the sanctuary is eighth century and the high altar is from 1127 (its Bernini baldacchino was completed in 1627). The floor is mediaeval Cosmatesque. A fresh addition is a souvenir shop in the sacristy. As you can see from the right photograph San Crisogono is Basilican in style and its columns are ancient. San Crisogono had been the starting point of the Noantri procession starting in 1535 but in 1890 the Madonna had been moved to the newer Santa Agata. However, she still likes to drop in on her old digs and the procession now terminates at San Crisogono, which is where we caught up to her and her carriers. The Madonna spent about fifteen minutes outside the Basilica while the crowd prayed and sang while the band played on. Of course I didn't understand many of the words but when they began the Italian national anthem, "Inno di Mameli" or "Mameli's Hymn," also known as "Canto degli Italiani" or "Song of the Italians," I could at least hum along with the tune, recognising it from watching the World Cup of soccer. Fratelli d'Italia, L'Italia s'è desta; Dell'elmo di Scipio S'è cinta la testa. Dov'è la Vittoria? Le porga la chioma; Ché schiava di Roma Iddio la creò.

Stringiamci a corte! Siam pronti alla morte; Italia chiamò.

Brothers of Italy, Italy has awakened; Scipio's helmet she has put on her head. Where is the Victory? Offer her the hair; because, slave of Rome, God created her. 105

Let us unite! We are ready to die; Italy calls. After the jingoistic song was completed we witnessed a miracle, a snowstorm in July, just like the marvel that determined the location of Santa Maria Maggiore. Unfortunately, this snowstorm was neither cold nor wet but consisted instead of kilograms and kilograms of white and gold confetti that "rained" down upon us (accompanied by some minor fireworks) while the poor bearers had to not only lift the canopy but also to carry it up the steps of the Basilica. As it disappeared into San Crisogono, the crowd began to scatter in search of further amusement. This dispersal was aided in great measure by the sudden arrival of police shoving the crowds back so that a group of about fifty soldiers in spanking white uniforms with huge black feathers on their helmets could march by a very fast clip without wounding too many. We looked around and saw some stands selling tchotchkes, most of them entirely unrelated to the festival as well as some empty chairs that would likely fill up whenever a show would get underway. We certainly passed on the local specialty, porchetta, which was offered all over the place but not only didn't look particularly tasty, we doubted it was particularly bacteria-free in this heat, despite all the salt it contained. Instead I risked a cold mixed fruit salad, a macedonia, which consisted of mostly watermelon chunks, which consisted in great measure of watermelon pits. Picking my way to the fruit we crossed the pedestrian bridge, the Ponte Garibaldi, to our side of the Tiber. This gave us the opportunity to walk through the Ghetto, still the home of Jewish restaurants and of Hassidic Jews marking the end of the Sabbath. The Jewish community in Rome is known to be the oldest Jewish community in Europe and also one the oldest continuous Jewish settlements in the world, 106

dating back to 161 B.C. when Jason ben Eleazar and Eupolemus ben Johanan arrived in Rome as envoys of Judah Maccabeus. Other delegations were sent by the Hasmonean rulers in 150 and 139 B.C. After the Romans invaded Judea in 63 B.C., Jewish prisoners of war were brought to Rome as slaves, Jewish delegates came to Rome on diplomatic missions, and Jewish merchants travelled to Rome seeking business opportunities. Many of those who visited Rome stayed behind and the Jewish population began to grow. The Jewish position in Rome began to deteriorate during the reign of Constantine the Great (306-336), who enacted laws limiting the rights of Jews as citizens. Jewish synagogues were destroyed by Christian mobs in 387-388 and in 493-526. Once Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, emperors further limited the civil and political rights of the Jews. Most of the imperial laws dealing with the Jews since the days of Constantine are found in the Latin Codex Theodosianius (438) and in the Latin and Greek code of Justinian (534). Some of the relevant decrees in these codes include prohibitions against making proselytes, intermarriage, owning slaves (slave labour was very common and this prohibition severely restricted the economic life of those Jews who weren't themselves slaves), holding any esteemed position in the Roman state, building new synagogues, And testifying against Christians in court. Julius Crow laws. From the 1200's to the mid 1400's, treatment of the Jews varied from pope to pope. For example, in 1295, Pope Bonifice VIII humiliated a visiting Jewish delegation that was sent to congratulate him on his ascendancy; whereas, Pope Boniface IX treated the Jews benevolently. He favoured a succession of Jewish physicians and recognized the rights of Jews as citizens. On the other hand, Eugenius IV passed anti-Jewish legislation in the Council of Constance. The Jews of Rome fully participated in the flourishing economic and intellectual climate of the Renaissance. They became merchants, traders and bankers, as well as artisans. During the reign of Pope Alexander VI, however, a special tax was imposed on the Jews of Rome to pay for his military operations against the Turks. Later popes during the first half of the 16th Century were more sympathetic to the Jewish community than the Borgia pope. The Medici Popes, Leo X and Clement VII, treated the Jews well. Leo X abolished certain discriminatory levies, did not enforce the wearing of the badges Jews had been forced to put on in the 12th century, and also sanctioned the establishment of the Hebrew Printing Press. During the Reformation, in 1555, Pope Paul IV decreed that all Jews must be segregated into their own quarters (ghettos), they were forbidden to leave their homes during the night, were banned from all but the most strenuous occupations and had to wear a distinctive badge — a yellow hat. More than 4,700 Jews lived in the seven-acre Roman Jewish ghetto that was built across from the Trastevere section of the city. If any Jews wanted to rent houses or businesses outside the ghetto boundaries, permission was needed from the Cardinal Vicar. Jews could not own any property outside the ghetto. They were not allowed to study in higher education institutions or become lawyers, pharmacists, painters, politicians, notaries or architects. Jewish doctors were only allowed to treat Jewish patients. Jews were forced to pay an annual stipend to pay the salaries of the Catholic officials who supervised the Ghetto Finance Administration and the Jewish Community Organization; a stipend to pay for Christian missionaries who 107

proselytized to the Jews and a yearly sum to the Cloister of the Converted. In return, the state helped with welfare work, but gave no money toward education or caring for the sick. Nuremburg laws, in essence. In 1870, Italy was united as a nation under King Victor Emmanuel, who decreed that the ghettos be dismantled and gave the Jews full citizenship. Following the end of the papal states, Jews fully integrated into Italian society. They comprised a significant percentage of the university teachers, generals and admirals. A number of Jews were involved in government and were close advisors of Mussolini. Five Jews were among the original founders of the fasci di combattimento in 1919 and were active in every branch of the Fascist movement. Mussolini’s authorised biographer, Margharita Sarfatti, and his Minister of Finance, Guido Jung, were Jews. In 1931, approximately 48,000 Jews lived in Italy. By 1939, up to 4,000 had been baptized, and several thousand other Jews chose to emigrate. During the war, the Nazi pressure to implement discriminatory measures against Jews was, for the most part, ignored or enacted half-heartedly. Most Jews did not obey orders to be transferred to internment camps and many of their nonJewish neighbours and government officials shielded them from the Nazis. Some Jews were interned in labour camps in Italy. After Italy was occupied by the Germans in 1943, the Nazis wanted to deport Italian Jewry to death camps, but resistance from the Italian public and officials stymied their efforts. A gold ransom was extorted to stop the S.S. commanding officer in Rome from killing 200 Jews. Still, nearly 8,000 Italian Jews perished in the Holocaust, but this number was significantly less than in most occupied countries in Europe. Roughly 80 percent of the Italian Jews survived the war. Today, a diverse community of 15,000 Jews lives in Rome. The Jewish community’s organization, based in Rome, the Unione delle Comunita Ebraiche Italiane, is directly involved in providing religious, cultural, and educational services and also represents the community politically. In 1987, the Jewish community obtained special rights from the Italian state allowing them to abstain from 108

work on the Sabbath and to observe Jewish holidays. At least 13 synagogues can be found today in Rome, including a special synagogue for the Libyan Jews who immigrated to Rome after the Six-Day War in 1967. Three of thirteen synagogues are located under the same roof at Via Balbo 33 (Ithaki, Sephardic and Ashkenazi). The Italian chief rabbi officiates at the Great Synagogue of Rome and heads the country's rabbinical council. It took less time to walk through the small ghetto than to write this small history. We wandered semi-aimlessly towards the apartment but made sure to take another look at the Turtle Fountain, the ruins of the Largo Argentina, and of course the Piazza Navona. It is possible that we dispensed with our nightly gelato; it is equally possible that we simply forgot to document it. Our one and only Saturday in Rome hereby endeth.

Domenica, 18 luglio

Piazza della Repubblica Just before starting to write this chapter I received a telephone call from the Pope, who is on the distribution list (pseudonymously as ―LARRAC‖), to inform me, in the name of accuracy and completeness, that we indeed passed on gelato Saturday night. Grazie mille, Papa. Odd photograph, this. We were out bright and early this steaming Sunday and off for the Quirinale and Viminale Hills. We looked at our bus maps for a minute or two, then looked at each other, and then quickly made the rational decision to walk a block to the nearby stand and pick up a taxi. No muss, no fuss. Our goal was the Piazza della Repubblica and in just a few minutes (less traffic on Sunday mornings) he dropped us off in this immense, semicircular Piazza. Both the size and shape of the Piazza are dictated by its ancient occupant, The Baths of Diocletian. Dedicated in AD 306, the Baths (Thermae Diocletiani) were the largest and most sumptuous of all the imperial baths and remained in use until the aqueducts that fed them were cut by the Goths in AD 537. Similar in size and plan to those of Caracalla, they are relatively well preserved because various parts later were converted to ecclesiastical or other use.

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In particular it was the Baths’ exedra, a semicircular recess, often crowned by a semidome (usually set into a building's façade), which has dictated the form of the Piazza della Repubblica. Until recently it was known as the Piazza dell’Esedra, in recognition of its ancestor. Like New Yorkers who stubbornly refer to the Avenue of the Americas as 6th Avenue, veteran Romans still refer to the square by its defunct appellation. The name of the Piazza was officially changed only after World War II in a patriotic urge. During the mediaeval period the Piazza's main purpose was to serve as the city's meat market after it was finally expelled from the deteriorated and overgrown Roman Forum. This prosaic function of this major Piazza was finally eradicated in the nineteenth century after the construction of Rome's first train station nearby. The new and grand vision required Rome to have a gateway to impress its renewed splendour upon visitors, who would have probably arrived at the Termini rail station, a short walk from here. Gaetano Koch was tasked to design and construct twin palaces that were built upon the foundations of Diocletian’s Baths. The Piazza opened up to the Via Nazionale toward the Victor Emmanuel monument (the "wedding cake"). The Museo Nazionale Romano, which is arguably the world’s largest repository of Roman antiquities, is also adjacent to this Piazza. This being Rome a Piazza requires two necessities of life: a church and a fountain. In the centre of the Piazza della Repubblica one finds, if one can avoid being struck by a car, the Fountain of the Naiads. It is one of those central fountains, mostras, which are created when a new or restored aqueduct brings water to a section of the city. The Acqua Pia Marcia first began to quench thirsts on 10 September, 1870 and was welcomed by that problematic Pope, Pius IX (he's the arch-reactionary who declared himself infallible, without irony). There was already a fountain there but it was located several hundred yards away in this undeveloped area. Also in 1870 the Via Nazionale was constructed, leading from the Baths of Diocletian to the Forum, and two years later the Central Railway Station (its successor is the Stazione Termini) was completed nearby and it was decided to demolish the existing fountain and to rebuild it on a more splendid scale at the top of the Via Nazionale.

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The architect entrusted with the design was Alessandro Guerrieri (Fontana being deceased for 250 years) and he created a large circular basin with a powerful central jet. He placed these inward jets not on the rim of the main basin but rather a beneath a second, smaller basin into which they deliver the water from the new aqueduct. His new idea was to add an architectural structure rising from the main basin with four plinths for future statues. He boringly suggested lions or maybe dolphins, but the authorities decided instead that four reclining nude water nymphs would be a more original and attractive adornment. After a period with four plaster lions rather cheaply and temporarily adorning the fountain, a Commission approved the design of sculptor Mario Rutelli for four reclining nymphs, each with a prop: a seahorse, a swan, a water snake, and a reptile. He employed a lovely lass as his model and represented her in four slightly different attitudes. He attempted to cast and affix his gigantic water maidens in secret but prying eyes peered behind the hoardings and were seriously affronted. Great debates were held at City Hall. There were appeals to decency, fears for the young and innocent, and references to morality and civilisation.

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"The sculptor has taken four divans, which vary from a seahorse to a marine monster, upon which he has spread out his nymphs, not nymphs with elegant forms like those which abound in the art of the eighteenth century but nymphs elevated not with the purity of water but with cheap wine like peasants of the Campagna.‖ Pro-Rutelli liberals reminded the critics that similar outbreaks in the past by outraged moralists had resulted in the absurdity of adding trousers to Michelangelo's figures in the Sistine Chapel and metal kilts and chemises to several statues in St Peter's. When the hoardings were finally removed on 10 February, 1901 the Fountain of the Naiads was revealed to the crowd made larger, of course, by the debates. Newspapers of the following morning remarked that no one had blushed and even the choirboys seemed uninterested, let alone stimulated. Only the Vatican's propaganda newspaper, Il Osservatore Romano, was bothered by the abomination but their fulminations went nowhere. The Fountain of the Naiads, having survived the dangers of moral outrage, has taken its place among the great mostre of Rome and is probably the most spectacular of all after dark with its impressive floodlighting. The central figure of the sea god, Glaucus, was added in 1911 (with Rutelli again the sculptor) with little indignation. He holds a fish which expels a jet of water more powerful than any in Rome, except those of the twin fountains in Bernini's Piazza in front of St Peter's Basilica. Before continuing our brief stay on the Viminale Hill we found a likely café on the Via Nazionale, Busto, for our morning "cap and corn.‖ Then we headed towards the impressive church that was created directly out of the ruins of The Baths of Diocletian. While the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla attract the most visitors and are better known, Diocletian's gift to his people possesses something that their more famous rival lacks: a major structure that is still intact. During the Renaissance the main Hall of the bathing complex was converted into a church, a transformation that protected the structure from destruction during later building booms. 112

Though redecorated during the eighteenth century, the church remains the best place in Rome to get a feel for the scope and scale of ancient Imperial baths. Diocletian's enormous complex covered thirty-two acres and could accommodate as many as 9000 bathers in its change rooms, steam rooms, hot baths, tepid baths, cold baths, outdoor swimming pool, outdoor exercise area, gardens, and libraries. Its most impressive space was the Great Hall of the Frigidarium with plunge pools at its four corners and an elaborate exterior facade fronting on the swimming pool. It is this Hall that survived into the Renaissance and inspired Pope Pius IV who converted it into a house of worship dedicated to the Holy Mother, the angels, and, for once, the nonunionised slaves who built the enormous Baths. It was in 1561 that Pius IV commissioned one Michelangelo to transform the pagan Frigidarium into a Christian church, to be called Santa Maria degli Angeli. The layout is distinctly odd because Michelangelo chose to use the existing long axis of the Hall as transepts, which required the addition of a new space to accommodate a high altar and choir. The resulting ground plan reverses the usual Latin-cross spatial hierarchy; instead of the expected long nave with short transepts and chancel, it produces a short nave with a narrow chancel and extra-wide transepts. The overall effect is more than a little disorienting. But if viewed as a Roman bath rather than as a Christian church Santa Maria degli Angeli is not baffling in the least and its immense interior remains to this day one of the most exhilarating spaces in the entire city. The vast Hall dwarfs all who enter; standing at its centre, it is easy to see why so many mediaeval Romans thought that the ancient city

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had been built by race of giants. In antiquity the effect would have been even more dramatic because 18th-century renovations raised the floor level some 5 feet. We found it awe-inspiring, as Pius and Michelangelo had intended. Among surviving Roman interiors only the Pantheon is more redolent of the city's illustrious ancient past. If anything, the interior is reminiscent of a 19th-century railroad station. The architects who designed the great American railroad terminals were passionate admirers of Classical architecture. They loved the huge scale and power of Roman public architecture and they consciously modelled their railroad stations on the great Roman baths of antiquity. As just one example, consider Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Perhaps one of New York's greatest losses of the twentieth century was the destruction of the marvellous Pennsylvania Station, modelled directly on The Baths of Caracalla. On the floor is the Meridian Line, a sundial laid down along the meridian that crosses through Rome, at latitude 15º. At true noon, about 12.15 pm (1.15 pm in summer time), the sun directly casts its light on this line. Part of the cornice on the right side of the transept wall has been cut away to provide the effect. The markings were made by the astronomer, mathematician, archaeologist, historian and philosopher Francesco Bianchini. He had been commissioned by Pope Clement XI to design it for the Holy Year of 1700. It took a bit too long; it was completed in 1703 with the assistance of the astronomer G.F. Maraldi. But by then the pilgrims were well out of town and the pecuniary purpose of its commission was somewhat frustrated. As we were in the neighbourhood we decided to take another look at Santa Maria della Vittoria and its magnificent stage setting of Santa Teresa by the sublime Bernini. Unfortunately, about five minutes after our entering the church a priest began handing 114

out missives for the Sunday Mass and we beat a tactical retreat. A brief voyeuristic peek at Santa Teresa and her angel making love and we were on our way. Our way was leading us to the Quirinal Hill, the Palazzo Barberini and its National Gallery of Ancient Art (Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica) which we had passed many a time in 2007 on the Via delle Quattro Fontane, on the way to La Fontanella Sistina and a warm meal. We often had walked past its high gates and Palm trees guarding the entrance but had never entered it. You should remember that the Barberini family was providential to include a Pope, in this instance Urban VIII, and therefore money was no object in the construction of their modest homestead. Two years after obtaining the papacy in 1623, Maffeo Barberini and his "nephews" purchased the Palazzo Sforza and other properties in the area. Upon the death of Carlo Maderno, the first architect of the project, it was natural that Gian Lorenzo Bernini succeed as chief architect in 1629. Bernini had both the talent and friends in high places required to reject the Roman tradition of monotonous regularity which had been established by the Palazzo Farnese. With its arcaded entrance facade set between embracing wings the Palazzo Barberini offers an enticing welcome more than any other Palazzo of its era and its expansive feel (it sprawls rather than looms) comes as a refreshing change. Because of its location at the time, standing on the edge of the inhabited city near gardens and open fields, Maderno used as his model the country-style garden facade of the Villa Farnesina across the Tiber. It is significant because a country Villa is considerably smaller than a city Palazzo and the Palazzo Barberini is a full-blown Palace designed to reflect the status and power of the Barberini family during the papacy of the

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Barberini Pope. Maderno intended his design to offer the best of both worlds and the result was the most individual of Rome's great papal palazzi. It has never been copied and it remains to this day the city's only significant departure from the long tradition of monolithic Palazzo design. The facade's three tiers of arches with their varying Classical orders derive, of course, from that most famous of Classical models, the Colosseum. Such stacked arcades were not unknown in Renaissance Palazzo design but they had always been employed in interior courtyards, and never on an exterior facade. The Palazzo is H-shaped and the cross-piece main facade is functionally its least important section but its design intends to draw attention away from the two main blocks, making the building seem a great deal smaller than it actually is. Despite its name, the art collection is, by Roman standards, hardly ancient, consisting of art from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. It is centred on the original Barberini collection which tried mightily, but unsuccessfully, to surpass that of his predecessor’s "nephew," Scipione Borghese. That being said, it includes masterpieces by Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Lorenzo Lotto, Andrea del Sarto, Perugino, Caravaggio, Canaletto and Raphael. One of its highlights is original to the Palazzo preceding its development as an art museum and that is Pietro da Cortona’s fresco on the ceiling of the Gran Salon, Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power. Unfortunately, the marvellous Salon (covering a good part of the second storey) was closed for restoration -- which unhappily did not reduce the admission price. Drat! But we did get to see a few decent paintings, including one of Caravaggio's goriest: Judith Beheading Holofernes (1599). Judith, a beautiful widow chosen by God, uses her charms to enter the tent of Holofernes, an Assyrian general out to destroy Judith's hometown. Overcome with drink, he passes out and is decapitated by Judith; his head is taken away in a basket (often depicted as carried by an elderly female servant, or crone). 116

Another masterpiece in the Palazzo Barberini celebrates love, not war. Raphael lived in rather grand style in a palace designed by Bramante. He never married, but in 1514 became engaged to Maria Bibbiena, Cardinal Bibbiena's ―niece‖; Raphael seems to have been talked into this by his friend the Cardinal, but his lack of enthusiasm seems to be reflected in the marriage not taking place before she (and he) died in 1520. Raphael is said to have had many affairs, but a permanent fixture in his life in Rome was "La Fornarina” (1520), Margherita Luti, the daughter of a baker (fornaro) named Francesco Luti from Siena who lived on the Via del Governo Vecchio, around the corner from the Palazzo Olivia. Margherita is pictured with an oriental style hat and bare breasts. She is making the gesture of covering her left breast, or turning it with her hand, and is illuminated by a strong artificial light coming from outside. Her left arm has a narrow band carrying the signature of the artist, RAPHAEL URBINAS. XRay analyses have shown that in the background there was originally a Mona Lisa-type landscape in place of the myrtle bush, which was sacred to Venus, goddess of love and passion. Perhaps more impressive than paintings by Caravaggio and Raphael which are, after all, a dime a dozen in Rome, are the modern public washrooms of the Palazzo Barberini. Travellers to Rome are often accustomed to unpleasant surprises when seeking relief as shop owners think foul scorn of folks who use their facilities without becoming customers, public washrooms have been declared extinct (and for good reason), and many amenities in restaurants should offer Hazmat suits along with soap. Rome specialises in abolishing toilet seats which cleverly reduces the time required for the semi-annual festival of washroom cleaning. But in the Palazzo Barberini a needy patron finds modern Italian design, all in wood, marble, and chrome. Each pristine stall contains both a toilet – cum

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seat - and a clean sink. We would willingly have remained there all day but there were many more things to do before we slept.

Francisco Borromini and a Return to Noantri Despite the extraordinary comfort we both tore ourselves away from the Palazzo Barberini’s luxurious washrooms and headed for our old 2007 haunt, the Quirinal Hill. We had remembered that Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane had the frustrating and minimal opening hours of 12-1 on Sundays only and, on the off chance that these hours would be respected, wanted to grab the opening. We first risked life and limb to reacquaint ourselves with the four fountains ("Quattro Fontane‖) on the corner with the very narrow sidewalks that I described many, many chapters ago so will not reiterate at this time. The inspiration for the overall design of San Carlo's façade derives from Michelangelo, never a bad idea. The general organisation of each of the façade's two stories -- full story columns, with the wall behind divided horizontally to allow for smaller subsidiary columns on the lower portion -- is similar to the

Palazzo dei Conservatori that Michelangelo had designed for the Campidoglio. But Borromini went further: the façade of San Carlo not only balances up, down, and across, it balances in and out as well. Borromini's design emphasises the wall and brings it alive with sinuous curves. 118

Unexpectedly and brilliantly, those curves are not identical on the façade's two stories. The ground-floor wall follows a concave-convex-concave curve while the upper-floor wall follows a concave-concave-concave pattern. Against this complexity Borromini sets a simple framework of columns, uniformly lined up across the façade surface so as to supply horizontal and vertical stability. As with Bernini's problem down the block at Sant’Andrea, Borromini had to deal with a tiny and circular space, smaller than that of a single pier that holds up the dome at St Peter’s Basilica. Borromini pulled out his high school math book and devised a complex, geometrical design for the interior. It is an oval derived from two circles inscribed within two equilateral triangles. The overall effect is almost dizzying in its complexity, but it is a firmly controlled complexity. As on the façade, the composition is anchored by strong, plain columns arrayed around the perimeter in groups of four, well spaced. The monks who commissioned San Carlo, the Spanish Order of the Unshod Trinitarians (odd name, that) were immensely pleased with their new church and boasted that they received requests for drawings of the building from all over Europe. One of them wrote, "With regard to artistic merit, fantasy, excellence, and singularity nothing similar can be found anywhere in the world…. Everything is arranged in such a manner that one part supplements the other and the spectator is stimulated to let his eye wander about ceaselessly." A somewhat dissimilar opinion came from the seventeenth century critic Giovanni Bellori: "Borromini is a complete ignoramus, the corrupter of architecture, the shame of our century."

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At San Carlo, as with all Borromini's buildings, the drama is purely architectural. Whereas Bernini relied upon sculpture, painting, and decoration to bring his architecture alive, Borromini remained an architectural purist. He eschewed painting and sculpture and though he used carved decorations brilliantly, its role was always subsidiary. In a Borromini building it is the architectural alone that rules. This emphasis on pure form sets him apart from the other architects of this era and makes him one of the great loners of architectural history. But he was a loner of the highest genius: an iconoclastic Classicist who used the Classical vocabulary to create an architectural language that was deeply personal, uniquely individual, instantly recognisable, and, in its special way, incomparably beautiful. Because of the wacky opening hours it is not possible to run back and forth between Borromini's San Carlo and Bernini's Sant'Andrea, although they are only about 150 yards apart on the same street. If we could have done so, we would have a unique opportunity to view both the similarities and differences between the two great architects of their time. Bernini versus Borromini. The two were exact contemporaries (born nine months apart) but as personalities they could hardly have been more different. Gianlorenzo Bernini was astute, charming, worldly, socially adept, and ended his life acclaimed throughout Europe as the most accomplished artist of his era. Francisco Borromini was obsessive, moody, suspicious (especially of Bernini), antisocial, and ended his life by a painful and protracted suicide by sword. Bernini was an infamous womaniser until he married and then settled down in domestic contentment with many children, one of whom became his first biographer. Borromini always lived alone and the consensus is that he was chaste. As architects, they were in many significant ways diametrically opposed as well, and nowhere in Rome is the contrast between their individual styles -- and the brilliance of both -- more evident than in the two small churches of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale and San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane.

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Having satisfied the rigid requirements of entering San Carlo we were finished for the morning and ready for lunch. We walked a few blocks to the Via Nazionale where we surprisingly had no difficulty finding the bus that would return us to the Corso, a fiveminute walk from the Palazzo Olivia. We headed to the Governo Vecchio in search of an acceptable meal and found the best choice to be, unexpectedly, a chain restaurant, normally something we would not consider. However, we required a salad and where more to put appropriate than the local branch of L’Insalata Ricca which we knew to be found in the Piazza Pasquino (remember the talking statue?) right at the end of our street, a reasonable distance to walk in the midday sun. The service was a tad slow but the salads were splendid. From a menu with a seemingly infinite variety of salads ( http://www.insalataricca.it/menu.asp# ) Randi chose Il Contadina (The Country) with feta, tomatoes, and almonds while Steven, always adaptable, went with his habitual Caprese with Buffalo mozzarella, basil, and the finest tomatoes he has had since the world and he were very young. Anyone watching him eat those pomodori would have been cheered by the sight of the most blissful man in Rome. We both had water because it was too hot for wine. We then returned to the apartment: Steven to read and then go to sleep, Randi to fill her purse with Euros and then to go shopping. It was the Lord's Day and many smaller shops were shuttered but Randi managed to find most of those that remained open, including a glorious department store, La Rinascente, which was willing to take her money upon a Sunday. We had noticed it before in the Piazza Colonna and it was deeply impressed upon her memory. She purchased a beautiful silk scarf there and some interesting jars of preserved food at some shops directly across from our old friend, Bernini's Minerva, the elephant holding up the obelisk. These goodies included dry 121

pasta, tapenade, and sauces, including some that were spicy enough for Zachary's advanced tastes. She also checked out the wonderful Murano glass shops on the Corso Rinascimento but as one wine glass cost sixty Euros, she sadly but wisely left emptyhanded. I am not much of a fan of Italian design, especially men's clothing, shoes, and automobiles, but Murano glass is especially striking and mesmerizing and I, for one, uncharacteristically would not have complained if she had returned with an empty wallet and a nice set of Murano wine glasses.

By the time Randi was done helping out the Italian economy it was the hour to head out for dinner. We wanted to return to Trastevere to see what was happening with the Festa di Noantri on its second, processionless, evening. Perhaps the best-known Pizzeria in Trastevere, among many excellent ristorante, is Dar Poeta so that was our initial objective. It is in a narrow alley (Trastevere mostly consists of narrow alleys) with the wide 122

name of Via dei Bologna and was obviously easier for many (other than us) to find because it was packed. We were fortunate to have only a brief wait before a small table on the uneven cobblestones became free. Next to the patio was a large group of people waiting for their takeout orders. We could only sit and envy those for whom Dar Poeta is a neighbourhood joint. Sigh. Every now and then an employee would hustle out of the Ristorante with a sack of fresh, aromatic, hot pies, hop on a Vespa, and zoom off. They deliver, too. Probably not to Toronto, though we did not ask. Sigh number two. The pizza did not disappoint. Neapolitan pizza is supposed to be unsurpassed but it is hard to conceive of how it could be tastier than that widely available in Rome. Since we already knew where the Noantri Festival was hanging out we returned to both the starting and finishing line churches. The peripatetic statue was being displayed at San Crisogono for the duration of the festival and there was a steady stream of visitors entering the church and saying "bona sera." I do my best to understand, accept, and respect the traditions of other folks but I have never been much impressed by any expression of the Virgin Mother cult and to me it all is a little silly. I clearly was in the minority here and certainly, and appropriately, gave no indication of these beliefs. The procession having ended the previous night it was party time and the milling crowds were bouncing from one stand to another, munching on thick porcetta sandwiches followed by gelato. We saw a bunch of chairs set up in front of a stage and cleverly figured out that there was to be some type of performance tonight. They were occupied by locals who knew to arrive early but we were comfortable enough standing at the rear. There was a rather untraditional and absolutely anachronistic moving-letter sign (like on the New York Times building) announcing, "La prestazione comincia al 21:00.‖ This being Rome we were wholly unsurprised when 9 o'clock passed without any movement on stage. About twenty minutes later a master of ceremonies appeared and introduced the orchestra, which consisted of a fellow at an electronic keyboard. Then, one by one, soloists were introduced and sang their one song, their names temporarily immortalised on that electric sign. On the whole, the talent level was of an amateur but perfectly 123

competent nature, at times even excellent, and we quite enjoyed the entertainment despite understanding hardly anything sung or said. The crowd was quite enthusiastic and appreciative. Fun. It was still going on when we left to cross the Tiber at the Ponte Garibaldi, the 120 m bridge of 1888 that connects Trastevere to the centre of Rome. It was named for Giuseppe Garibaldi, one of the three heroes of the Risorgimento, the mid-nineteenth century unification of the Italian nation. The others were the

diplomat Count Camillo Benso di Cavour and the writer/philosopher Giuseppe Mazzini. Of the three, Garibaldi is the swashbuckler, the soldier on horseback, sporting an Uruguayan serape and sombrero. He led an active military life in both Italy and South America (during one of his several exiles) and always cut a heroic figure. It is a first-rate story and well worth studying. His most famous victory was at Calatafimi on May 15, 1860 when he thrilled his future biographers by exhorting his troops (probably apocryphally, alas) with ―Qui si fa l'Italia o si muore” (Here we are either make Italy, or we die) which so inspired his 800 volunteers that they defeated a force twice their size of Imperial French soldiers. The story gets better with Garibaldi's marriage to the Brazilian firebrand, Anita Ribeiro da Silva, Who rode and fought alongside him. If you climb to the top of the Janiculum Hill you will find worshipful statues to both.

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Giuseppe:

Anita: Perhaps a bit less heroically we walked through the Campo di Fiori, careful not to step in any drunken vomit, and of course to the Piazza Navona for people and busker watching, then to the neighbourhood gelateria, and then to the Palazzo Olivia. Not the sort of deeds that lead to statues on the Janiculum or any other Hill.

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Lunedì, 19 luglio

Villa Farnesina We are now in the home stretch with only three full days remaining before we must return to drab, ahistoric, boring Toronto. I am feeling no sense of enthusiasm at returning home; in truth, I have never felt so at home anywhere as I do in Rome. Today will be our eighteenth day in Rome over seventeen years, a bare minimum of contact, yet I feel entirely sociosyntonic with its way of life. I am not so naive as to judge Rome perfect or so arrogant as to believe that I have a comprehensive understanding of this eternal city with its complex history. Perhaps I am ridiculous in believing that I could be happy here. No justifiable answers could emerge in the next three days so we will just enjoy them as they come. And leave as scheduled on 22 July. We were returning to Trastevere today but so early in the day there are no Noantri activities except possibly a cleanup of last night's licentiousness. Our target this morning is the Villa Farnesina. But first there are cappuccini and cornetti and we decided to spend a little early morning observation time in the Campo dei Fiori while the vegetables and fruit vendors still dominate and its drinkers are still sleeping it off. We made the rookie mistake of ordering our breakfast without looking at the unprovided menu and were promptly punished by being overcharged and not handed a receipt, the latter a crime in Italy. However, despite the extortive 14 Euro bill we quite enjoyed sitting in the Campo of an early morning watching the vendors finish their daily chore of setting up their stands. By the early afternoon their day will be done and, except for their clippings and bruised and spoiled produce which will remain on the ground for the mid afternoon cleanup, they are gone by 2 PM and the Campo returns to its other function, that of Party Central, which it retains until two in the morning. I suppose every city has its street markets and there is no reason to think that the Campo dei Fiori is the most picturesque or the most inclusive, but the produce on display tempts us, but only for a few minutes, to purchase some of the zucchinis, zucchini flowers, beans, eggplant, lettuce, onions, garlic, tomatoes to die for, apples, and pears and cook them in our apartment for dinner. Of course, that insane notion quickly passes. So we pass on to vendors that sell fresh herbs or prepared spice mixes for pastas in enormous bins. One stand consisted of only red, red, red tomatoes in all of the varieties from Roma to cherry to beefsteak. I felt like a dog in a butcher shop, an intellect in a bookshop, a lover of history in Rome. One side of the Campo is turned over to flower vendors. Only Paris, in our experience, could compete with the Campo in its presentation of vegetables, fruit, and flowers.

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As an aside, if you find yourself at any fruit or vegetable stand in Italy, keep your hands to yourself. You don't pick up anything to squeeze or otherwise test and you do not bag anything yourself. You tell the vendor what you want and how much of it, or point at it while raising a couple of fingers, and they will bag it and tell you how much it costs. Break the rule and you will be severely chastised. In most places you also do not hand the money directly to the vendor but place it instead on a metal plate, where you soon will also find your change. Coffee and salivating done, we crossed the Tiber on the Ponte Sisto (previously described) to look for the secret entrance of the Villa Farnesina. You will recall that a Villa is a country residence for a wealthy family found outside of the city walls, and a Palazzo refers to its city equivalent. To complicate matters the ancient Romans differentiated between three separate types of Villas: the Villa Rusticana was a large and substantial country house, usually a working farm; the Villa Suburbana was a house near a city or town, usually less substantial and lacking outbuildings; and the Villa Urbana was usually found at the edge of town and contained galleries and gardens, either with or without living quarters. During the Renaissance the term "Villa" 127

came to mean a building of almost any size that functioned as a refuge from the demands of daily life, where like-minded people could spend an afternoon or an evening engaged in civilised discourse surrounded by art and beauty. If they had the money. The Villa Farnesina is of this third category and was constructed by the architect Baldassare Peruzzi for his patron, the fabulously wealthy papal banker Agostino Chigi, between 1508 to 1511. As the banker to Popes Alexander VI Borgia, Pius III of the Sienese Piccolominis, Julius II della Rovere, and Leo X Medici, Chigi was reputed to be the richest man in Europe. He owned most of the land between the Tiber and the main road of that part of Trastevere, the Via Langura, and he had built for himself there a stable, a guesthouse, a dining pavilion at the edge of the Tiber, and the Villa. All, save for the Villa, are long departed. No longer bankers to the papacy by the middle part of the sixteenth century the Chigi sold the complex in 1579 to the Farnese family (it is almost directly across the Tiber from the Palazzo Farnese (now the French Embassy) and you may recall that the family once commissioned Michelangelo to construct a bridge over the Tiber connecting the two -- but it was never completed although part of it can be found crossing over the beautiful Via Giulia. You may also recall that we visited the Palazzo Farnese either 200 pages or a week ago, depending on your standard measure of time.). As banker to the popes the Chigi family had to, of course, entertain them lavishly. A path between the Vatican and the Villa was worn out by a constant series of visits by Popes, especially around dinner time. The grossly fat and famously extravagant Pope Leo X was a frequent guest at elaborate entertainments and meals (it was this intelligent but greedy Medici who said, immediately upon election, "Since God has seen fit to give us the papacy, let us see fit to enjoy it."). I presume that Chigi wrote these expensive papal visits off as business expenses, which they most certainly were. A good story is told of a particular dinner party given in honour of Pope Leo in 1518. It was a lavish banquet held in the dining pavilion adjacent to the Tiber. The servants were, as they cleared each course from the table, to dispose of the silver and gold plate by throwing it into the Tiber, to the astonishment and shock of the guests. However, the Chigi did not become astonishingly rich by throwing away money. In the days prior to this banquet his staff had installed underwater nets to catch these plates and utensils, to be retrieved the morning after the impressed guests had departed. This one is not apocryphal, unlike so many other fascinating tales of Renaissance Rome.

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We had some difficulty finding the entrance because the former Villa property has long been broken up and other cross streets constructed. We probably never did enter properly and were nearly run off once or twice by uniformed functionaries but a kind soul intervened and waved us inside. On initial approach the Villa Farnesina appears modest; a simple, understated facade with a simple, understated central entrance door (which we had not entered). It would certainly have been a more flamboyant approach in the day of Agostino Chigi and we could still see faint traces of the decorative monochromatic frescoes that had covered the plain exterior wall surfaces. But we would never accuse Chigi of stinting on ornamentation. Each room of the interior is a riot of colourful frescoes painted by such luminaries as Sebastiano del Piombo, Sodoma, Peruzzi, and Raphael. After we paid an admission fee the first room to be viewed is the recently restored "Loggia of Psyche,‖ designed by Raphael and completed by his assistants. The frescoes represent episodes in the story of Eros and Psyche as told by Apuleius in the "Metamorphosis." The story ends with two scenes painted on the pseudo tapestry of the ceiling, representing the Council and the Banquet of the Gods, during which the marriage between Eros and Psyche is celebrated.

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To the left of the Loggia of Psyche is the "Room of the Frieze", round which is a long and narrow fresco of mythological scenes painted by Baldassarre Peruzzi. The labours of Hercules, the myth of Orpheus, Mercury with the heifers of Apollo, and the Rape of Europa are particularly remarkable for their wealth of detail. To the right of the Loggia is the "Hall of

Galatea", which contains Raphael's famous fresco representing the triumph of the nymph Galatea, on a shell pulled by dolphins. All around there are delicate and idealised landscapes painted by Gaspare Dughet, and higher up there is an arresting Head of a Young Man against a rough background. The lunettes, representing several myths, and the wide square in which the figure of Polyphemus (a.k.a. The Cyclops) stands out, are the work of del Piombo. The vaulted roof, painted by Peruzzi, presumably represents the position of the stars at the time of Agostino Chigi's birth, indicating his horoscope. There is more: upstairs is the pièce de résistance, the ―Sala delle Prospettive‖ a set of illusionistic frescoes by

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Peruzzi on the upper floor, where the walls have been painted in ―trompe l'oeil” to look as if they opened out onto columned balconies offering views of the city outside. We sought out the central fireplace from which we had been informed the illusion is most effective. Over the fireplace, since we are already there, we could look up and see the powerful "Forge of Vulcan," probably also by Peruzzi. During recent restorations, a 500-year-old piece of graffiti in German Gothic came to light between the columns. It marks the passage of the Lansquenets and states: "1528 - why shouldn't I laugh: the Lansquenets have put the Pope to flight.‖ This had to do with the imprisonment of Clement VII during and after the Sack of Rome (1527) which will be described in great detail, of course, in a future digression. There were bedrooms (Chigi’s was decorated with a mural of the wedding of Alexander the Great by Sodoma) in the Villa Farnesina but the compound was used primarily for afternoon and evening gatherings and it is doubtful Chigi or his successors spent many nights here. There are also glorious gardens in which you will find a marble plaque stating: ―Quisquis huc accedis: quod tibi horridum videtur mihi amoenum est; si placet, maneas, si taedet abeas, utrumque gratum” (―Whoever enters here: what seems horrid to you is pleasant to me. If you like it, stay, if it bores you, go away; both are equally pleasing to me‖). Sounded a bit like the attitude of the first few guards we met outside the entrance. A trivia tidbit: in the 1870s, workers preparing to build the Tiber embankments stumbled across the remains of an ancient Roman villa on this property which turned out to be from the early 1st century and belonged to Augustus' son-in-law and military leader, the brilliant Marcus Agrippa. Like its Renaissance successor, the ancient palace had been slathered inside with frescoes, many of which were well preserved thanks to having been buried in mud during the Dark Ages from the very Tiber floods the modern embankments were being built to prevent. One of the rooms of this ancient palace was a winter dining room, the walls of which were covered in trompe-l'oeil scenes of the surrounding gardens, as if you were dining outdoors under a tent in springtime. More proof that, in Rome, tastes and trends often didn't change all that much, even over 1,500 years. The ruins have been reconstructed and placed in the Museo Nazionale Romano - Palazzo Massimo alle Terme.

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We had an easier time finding the proper exit and avoiding uniformed criticism and decided to look around this part of Trastevere, where we had not yet trod. The first item of interest we found was on the slightly wider Via della Scala, a city gate reconstructed by the Borgia Pope Alexander VI in 1498. This Porta Settimiana was one of the three gateways in the Aurelian walls on this side of the river. Its section of the wall, no trace of which remains, created a triangle with the top of the Janiculum and included the whole of the Trastevere area. In the Middle Ages, the Via Recta departed through this gate. It permitted pilgrims who had arrived in Rome from the Tiber river port in Trastevere to more easily reach St. Peter's in order to contribute badly needed funds to the church. The gateway was restored at the beginning of the 15th century and again at the end of the same century, when Alexander VI gave it the military expression that it retains today. All streets in Rome eventually lead to a Piazza and on these Piazzi you will routinely find a church, in this instance (Piazza della Scala) the Chiesa Di S. Maria Della Scala. The church and the adjacent 132

convent were built between 1593 and 1610, next to what at the time was the Papal Pharmacy (La Spezieria). The entrance to this pharmacy can be found in the Piazza della Scala and remains an ongoing business though the Pope rarely turns up nowadays for aspirin or cough drops. The Barefoot Carmelites had chosen Francesco Capriano da Volterra to be the architect, but when he died Girolamo Rainaldi finished the construction of Santa Maria della Scala. The convent was partly designed by Matteo da Città di Castello and partly by Ottaviano Mascherino. The slightly convex facade was not completed until 1624. Tradition holds that the icon of the Madonna in the northern transept once cured a child. The icon had been placed on the stairway of the house where the child lived and when her mother began praying in front of it the child was cured. Pope Clement VIII then built the church next to the house where this miracle had occurred. The Madonna della Scala, as the icon is known, shares her chapel with the funerary monument of Cardinal Prospero Santacroce, who holds the dubious honor of being the first Roman to smoke tobacco. For awhile tobacco was even called erba santacroce in Rome. The interior was renovated in the nineteenth century. Of course, it's pretty good but what impressed us

the most, what made this church unique on this trip at least, were the endless provision of chandeliers throughout the nave and transept. Our next targets were the Republican Temples and the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin with its absurdly famous "Mouth of Truth." To get there we had to cross back over the Tiber and thought it would be nice to return via The Broken Bridge (Ponte Rotto). Well, not exactly on the broken bridge, but rather next 133

to it. This once connected what is now Trastevere to the political centres of Rome, the Palatine Hill and the Forum. In the third century BC there was a simple wooden bridge (Pons Sublicius) which was destroyed in a flood and replaced in the second century BC by Rome's first stone bridge, the Pons Aemilius. Being located next to the river bend, where the water turbulence is stronger, and just past the island (Isola Tibernia), which made the river-bed narrower thus increasing the speed of the current, the bridge was subject to a continuous wear; only two centuries after its making, major restoration works had to be carried out for the first time, under Augustus. On this occasion it was renamed Pons Maximus, to remark upon its great length. The stone structure continued to incur damage from the water flow; in the 13th century it collapsed. It was rebuilt, but probably none too skilfully, and was badly damaged again two centuries later. It may seem an unfortunate location for the various bridges, but it was absolutely necessary for carrying traffic, as it was the main approach to the city for many inhabitants. The Renaissance brought no better luck to what was now called the Santa Maria Bridge, a.k.a. Senators’ Bridge; despite a restoration that had been recently carried out, in 1557 it was again completely swept away by a flood. It took 25 years before Pope Gregory XIII decided to rebuild it. You can still see his coat of arms on the ruin. By the end of the same century, the Trastevere district could be finally provided with running water thanks to a set of leaden pipes that crossed the river along this bridge. But alas! in 1598, on Christmas Eve, the worst flood that Rome had ever experienced in its long history - the water grew over 5 metres above the street level smashed the arches of the bridge's eastern half, which were facing the central districts. In 1853, thanks to the new industrial technologies, Pius IX had an iron footbridge constructed to fill in the missing part of Ponte Rotto: after over 300 years it spanned again from side to side. Very soon, though, its stone structure, which had become too weak to support the heavy metal extension, became unsteady. For safety reasons, in 1887 the footbridge was removed and a brand new bridge called Ponte Palatino (upon which we actually crossed the Tiber) 134

was built on the same spot, so close to the old one that the western end of Ponte Rotto had to be demolished; only its central arch was spared, probably because it would have been too expensive to pull down the whole thing. Finally, they gave up on it. No pope or administrator dared to restore it, leaving it as it was ever since. The only section left standing now retains its ultimate and most popular and accurate name, Ponte Rotto.

The Forum Boarium As we crossed from mediaeval/baroque Rome, past the Broken Bridge, back to Republican Rome we knew we had made a momentous decision, a major alteration of long-standing practice. At one o'clock (it was now 11:30) we had reserved (and prepaid) tickets for entrance to the Vatican Museums. I had bought them as early as possible, two months prior to the date of admission, on the Vatican website. This would enable us to skip the endless lines (though, in truth, the queue is always shortest in the early afternoon and we probably would have not had much of a wait anyway) and march right into one of the four or five greatest museums in the world. Instead, we chose to eat the tickets and miss out on the astonishing riches contained within. The heat wave was continuing and it was 35° again today. We were hot and tired. We were on the other side of town and I just preferred being where we were, as if I hadn't wasted that money and the opportunity. This is something I would never have done in the past. I would have moved heaven and earth to use the tickets we already paid for. Unthinkable. Unheard of. Out of the question. We were going well back in time, to the era before Augustus, before Julius Caesar, before the Empire to the location of the oldest forum in Rome, the predecessor of "The Roman Forum,‖ the Forum Boarium. It remains visible today only as an amorphous open area with a great deal of traffic, some pleasant greenery, and a scattering of buildings around the edges. But it is an immensely essential site for it was here that the early settlers of the Palatine Hill set up a market to

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serve travellers crossing the Tiber (such as we). It became the centre of commerce around which the original city of Rome developed. The Forum Boarium (Latin for "ox market") sat near the Tiber River between three of Rome's seven ancient hills: the Palatine, Capitoline, and Aventine. The area was a swamp until it was reclaimed by the Etruscan Kings. In the 6th century BC, Servius Tullius, one of those Etruscan Kings, also built a port here, the Portus Tiberius. Thanks to the port and a historic trade route that passed through here, the Forum Boarium was a busy commercial area that experienced a great deal of pedestrian traffic. Legend says that here, at the base of the Palatine Hill on its extreme eastern edge, the shepherd Faustulus stumbled on the abandoned infant twins Romulus and Remus and raised them to become the storied founders of the city. A very notable place indeed is this. The "amorphous open area" is now called the Piazza Bocca Della Verita for reasons that will shortly be made clear. While as a Piazza it appears fairly vacant in its midsection it contains some remarkable buildings including: two Republican temples, an Imperial arch, a mediaeval church and bell tower, a mediaeval house, and a Baroque fountain. It is a fine historical cross-section that perhaps deserves a better showcase. Let's begin our little tour of the Piazza with the Republican temples. These are the two oldest and most historically evocative inhabitants of the Piazza. Stranded on their island between the streams of traffic on the Lungotevere (all streets that run along the Tiber carry this name) dei Pierleoni and the Via Petroselli, the Republican temples are disused and permanently locked, their interiors intact but empty behind their fences. Their look of lost isolation amid all the modern bustle lends them a special pathos, as if the Roman gods had simply packed up, moved out, and shut up their houses behind them. The circular Temple of Hercules has long lost its original entablature and roof and its replacement roof sits awkwardly on top of its supporting columns, sort of like a Vietnamese rice paddy hat. Greek in style, its circular configuration caused it to be inaccurately termed a Temple of Vesta (in the Roman Forum, Vesta’s 136

Temple is similarly round with columns) for many centuries. Although the original name of the temple is in doubt, it appears quite likely that it was dedicated to Hercules, a demigod of victory and commercial enterprise. It is the oldest preserved Temple in Rome. This area is supposedly the general location of Hercules’s victory over Cacus during his return from the eighth of his labours. According to legend, as he was passing through this site on his return from stealing the cattle of Geryon, the monster Cacus made off with a few cattle and hid them in a nearby cave. Hercules located them and slew Cacus. To celebrate his victory he made a sacrifice of some of the bulls that he rescued at or near this Temple location. The Temple itself, which dates from some time in the late 2 nd century BC, is 14.8 m in diameter and consists of a circular cella (the inner chamber of a Temple in classical Greece) wall surrounded by a circular colonnade consisting of 20 Corinthian columns. The columns are 10.66 m in height. Like most other of the few surviving structures from ancient Rome, that the round Temple of Hercules is still among us is due to its having been at one time converted into a church. By 1132 it was known as ―St Stephen of the Carriages.‖ The upper part of the cella was replaced with brick and concrete during the 12th Century. Further restorations (and a fresco over the altar) were made in 1475 and there is a plaque on the floor dedicated by Pope Sixtus IV from the end of the sixteenth century. The temple was rededicated in the seventeenth century as ―St Mary of the Sun.‖ Nearby is the rectangular Temple of Portunus. This is more complete than that of Hercules and offers some reasonable idea of what Roman architecture was like before the Emperors and their megalomaniacal obsession with size began to infect Imperial architects. There is strength and power in abundance, but on a more human scale, and the Temple straightforwardly displays its Ionic order without overwhelming a visitor. Portunus is the god of river ports, a reasonable and appropriate recipient of a Temple in the Forum Boarium. Nowadays, the close connection between the Temple and the water is hard to imagine because after the flood of 1870 dikes were constructed to regulate the river. However, it is certain that this Temple once faced and greeted incoming ships. During the Republican era the river port was directly in front of this Temple, but it silted up during the early Empire. The present shape of the Temple 137

also dates back to the early second century BC, but there were later restorations. The terrace was exceptionally high (a goodly part is now buried under the ground) because it was so close to the river. The sanctuary was built on the site of an older Temple, which seems to date back to the third or even to the fourth century BC. Earthquakes, vandalism, scrounging of stone for new palazzi for papal families (such as the Palazzo Farnese), time, identification with pagans, and disinterest have robbed Rome -- and us -- of almost all pre-Imperial architecture. I suppose ultimately we skipped the Vatican museums in order to view these very singular Republican fossils, a decision we can easily rationalize. Next up is the Imperial arch. It is located at the eastern extremity of the piazza and is unusual in that it opens in four directions. It is known as the Arch of Janus Quadrifons, probably a Constantinian arch constructed in the early fourth century, and stands directly above the Cloaca Maxima (the original sewer of ancient Rome, still in use). The arch is a square whose corners are four large pilons each covered with marble. There are rows of niches in the marble which once contained statuary. Above the pilons was once an attic that bore inscriptions. The attic has not survived, though a part of one of the inscriptions was found in a wall of the nearby church of San Giorgio in Velabro, at the right flank of which is a small arch (Arco degli Argentari) erected in 204 AD, probably as an entrance into the Forum Boarium. Janus is the two faced god of doors and gates and beginnings and therefore a logical occupant at the entrance of the Forum Boarium.

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Before we get to the mediaeval church and Bell tower (and an explanation of the Piazza's name) we first must walk past the mediaeval house and the Baroque fountain. The Casa dei Crecenzi is a fairly recent addition to this historic Piazza, constructed in the twelfth century. As the inscription over the front door states, its owner hoped his building would revive the long-lost splendour of ancient Rome. But his reach certainly exceeded his grasp. His effort consisted of a set of half columns with primitive schematic capitals awkwardly set into the exterior wall to visually support a miscellany of friezes and cornices scavenged from deteriorating buildings he found nearby. The House of Crecenzi served the family as both a home and a fortified tower. The Crecenzi family chose to live here because they controlled the medieval wharves and also collected the tolls of all who managed to successfully cross the Broken Bridge from Trastevere. It was restored around 1940 and now contains the Centro Studi per la Storia e l’Architettura. A mediaeval house is rare in this part of Rome because the destruction of the aqueducts by invaders during the first millennium AD had cut off the water supply to the seven hills and forced the few Romans that remained to move towards the Campius Martius, a previously unoccupied area. Given the source of the Crecenzi family income, it is easy to see why they would build a house here and encourage others to do so. They might have been more successful if their aesthetic was a tad more pleasing. The finishing touch to the Piazza was provided in 1717 when Clement XI commissioned its fountain. You must know by now that I fervently believe that the fountains of Rome are, even in isolation, well worth a lengthy visit. The fountains of Paris are better maintained and wonderfully gilded but Roman fountains have the most appealing stone carving and most creative uses of water. Designed by Carlo Bizzaccheri (obviously, and prudently, inspired by the recently deceased Bernini) it consists of a massive pedestal of rough rock upon which two unhappy and emaciated Tritons hold a vast shell above their 139

heads from which a plume of the Acqua Felice rises into the air and falls over shell, Tritons, and rocks into the main basin below. There is no other basin quite like it in Rome. Its shape, an eight- pointed star, is, as expected, derived from its funding source, the arms of Pope Clement XI and his family.

That leaves the mediaeval church and Bell tower and the Bocca della Verita. Affixed to the porch of the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin (since 1692) is a strange object which has given the Piazza its name, "The Mouth of Truth." It is a circular marble stone, some 5 feet in diameter, carved in the form of a bearded human face with a slit for a mouth. It is almost certain that it began life as a lowly ancient Roman drain cover originally found in a nearby street or a public bath. The rain or bath water escaped through its mouth, probably into the nearby Cloaca Maxima itself. 140

It is compulsory that any tourist who finds himself in the Piazza must queue up on the porch of Santa Maria in Cosmedin and wait his turn to put his hand into the mouth and, most essentially, to be photographed doing so. The legend of very long-standing is that anyone doing so and simultaneously telling a lie will have his fingers bitten off. Mediaeval wives suspected of infidelity were sometimes required to submit to this ordeal to clear their names. In the movie "Roman Holiday," one of the most successful of the numerous Hollywood visits to the Eternal City, Gregory Peck sticks his hand inside and briefly feigns amputation, temporarily terrifying his Royal friend, Audrey Hepburn. The church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin is of the eighth century and was derived from a statio annonae, a structure in the centre of the Forum Boarium’s markets and storehouses that served as an audience hall for the official in charge of food inspection and municipal provisioning. After the Empire fell in the fifth century the Roman Catholic Church moved in to fill the civic vacuum left by the collapse of the Imperial government and the building was expanded to become a Christian diaconia, a welfare centre where food was distributed to the needy. Sometime in the eighth century a church was appended incorporating the still-visible colonnade of the statio into its interior front wall and 141

employing smaller scavenged columns and capitals for the nave. The marble Cosmatesque flooring, the enclosed choir, the bell tower, and the Gothic baldacchino over the altar were added during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the picture above you can see the queue of tourists doing their duty, ready to test the legend. Many will never enter the church, to their loss. The church is also known as Santa Maria in Schola Graeca, (Our Lady for the Greek Community). It was formerly used by Greek merchants in Rome, and Greek monks once served here. The Greek name ―Kosmidion‖ was commonly used in the 8th century, a reference to the rich decoration of the interior. That richly decorated interior has been long lost to us. At the end of the nineteenth century Santa Maria in Cosmedin became the first church in Rome to be "restored," stripped of its Renaissance and Baroque accretions that had themselves replaced the mediaeval "rich decorations." It has been returned to something vaguely resembling its mediaeval state, but bare on the outside and dour on the inside. But there have survived some unexpectedly affecting details. The tall columns along the left-hand wall retain their sense of antique Roman strength and presence. The nave columns’ capitals are worn and weatherbeaten but constitute nonetheless one of the finest scavenged collections in the city. Yet, they are but leftovers, sad reminders of an architectural feast long ended and only dimly remembered. In part, the harsh feel of the interior is due to the modern restoration. The mediaeval nave frescoes did not survive the Baroque renovation so the visual interest they originally supplied is missing and the upper nave today consists only of large expanses of cold, blank wall. What did survive the restoration are the late mediaeval additions such as the enclosed marble choir and Gothic baldacchino (pictured above) which seem to crowd rather than fill the modest nave and give the interior a cramped, cluttered feel that contradicts the simplicity of the surrounding architecture. In the end, Santa Maria in Cosmedin is a church of bits and pieces, a patchwork collection of architectural remnants cobbled 142

together to form a modest communal shelter carved out of the prevailing urban decay. It may be a humble and unpretentious church as Roman churches go but if it has any power at all it is due to its position midway between the architectural glories of antiquity and those of the Renaissance.

Teatro di Marcello By the time we were done communing with the Forum Boarium it was almost 1:30 on this hot afternoon and for the first time since we arrived I was feeling some weariness. True, this was a particularly active day/morning in which we walked from the Piazza Navona through the Campo dei Fiori across the River to Trastevere to the Villa Farnesina and then through Trastevere and back to the city proper for the Piazza Bocca di Verita and all of its treasures. But the sources of this exhaustion are a combination of my age, my arthritis, and the length of our trip. It's not that I wanted to go back to Toronto, hardly, but I probably need to slow down the last 2 1/2 days, take longer rests, and perhaps reduce the itineraries. Despite these truths that were becoming self-evident, I didn't want to take a taxi back to the Palazzo Olivia for my breather and nap because we wanted to see a little more of the area around the Campidoglio. So we began our mostly uphill trek from the Republican areas towards the chaotic Piazza Venezia. We passed several unmarked but obviously active excavation sites and ruins just before the Campidoglio and, like so many other unexpected finds, could little but wonder as to what they had discovered. We have often suspected that the baffling and unannotated nature of so many sites in Rome (including within The Roman Forum itself) is a result of heavy lobbying by tour guides and tour buses that prefer that we pay them for this information or otherwise be forced to remain ignorant.

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Also entirely undescribed but instantly recognisable to us is the sizeable Teatro di Marcello (Theatre of Marcellus) which we passed on our way to the Campidoglio. During Imperial times this was the largest of Rome's three important theatres, with a capacity that exceeded 14,000 spectators. It was begun by Julius Caesar and completed by Augustus in 12 BC and dedicated to the memory of his nephew and son-in-law, and anticipated successor, Marcellus who died at the age of nineteen. Similar to the much later Colosseum in its use of stacked arches to support tiers of seats, it quickly became the model for theatres throughout the Empire. It was abandoned and neglected throughout the early Middle Ages and then fortified in the eleventh century by the Pierloni family to serve as a neighbourhood stronghold. Some three hundred years later it passed to the Savelli family and they, in 1519, employed Baldassare Peruzzi (the same architect dude who designed the Villa Farnesina that we visited earlier this morning, seemingly a thousand hours ago) to construct the (still intact) Palazzo that replaced the top tier of seats. Further additions were made by the Orsini family in the seventeenth century and, as the city grew, the Teatro continued to attract barnacle-like hovels and shops outside and inside the ground floor arches. During Mussolini's heyday, when archaeology was employed for propaganda purposes and therefore well supported, all these accretions were cleared away and the ground was excavated down to its antique level. You can still see the high water mark of the previous ground level, clearly visible on some of the arch piers, about halfway up the lower arches. Today it is a maze of rented offices and apartments. It is said that during World War II the Duchess of Sermoneta escaped arrest at the hands of the Gestapo by hiding in its labyrinthine passageways. The history of the Theatre of Marcellus, of its derelictions and transformations, mirrors the long saga of the city as a whole. The Colosseum and the Pantheon are in their separate ways incomparable -- one is an antique ruin and the other an antique survivor -- but it is the Theatre, battered but unbowed, that is archetypally Roman in its ability to adapt to the vicissitudes of time and history.

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To the far right of the above photograph you can see part of the residue of the Teatro’s neighbour across the ingeniously named Via del Teatro di Marcello, the Temple of Apollo Sosianus. The remnants, pathetically, consist of only three full-height columns which actually are vestiges of Augustus's rebuild of a fifth century BC Temple to Apollo. The original was constructed in 431 BC and dedicated to Apollo Medicus in fulfilment of a pledge made by the consul Gnaeus Julius Mento during a plague, which he apparently survived. There were several Republican renovations before Augustus assigned Gaius Sosius to fully restore the Temple, which was now adjacent to the completed Theatre. The Temple’s ruins were occupied in the post-Roman period by medieval dwellings right up to the modern era, when they were demolished by Mussolini's order between 1926 and 1932 to allow the Theatre of Marcellus to be highlighted in relative isolation. In those same efforts the remains of the fallen colonnade were recovered in the very positions in which they had fallen, inside the arches of the theatre and as a result in 1937 and 1938 the podium's remains were excavated. In 1940 the fallen columns were raised on this podium, though probably not in their original positions. There is one more site of great historical interest in the immediate vicinity and that is the Porticus Octaviae, the Porch of Octavia. A Roman porticus consisted of a long pillared roofed area, often backing up against a building, which was designed to provide shade and protection against inclement weather. Octavia, the warm and generous sister of Augustus, rebuilt a preexisting porticus that Quintus Metellus had built in 149 BC facing the Circus Flaminius on the river bank just north of the Tiber Island. Octavia and Augustus lavishly decorated the aggrandized structure, adorned it with bronze and marble statuary, renewed the interior temples of Juno Regina and Jupiter Stator, furnished it with a great library, and added a meeting hall (curia) opposite the front entrance and other facilities. Octavia was the mother of Marcellus, Augustus’s lamented successor. As Marcellus died many years before Augustus, the 146

Portico was thereafter seen as a memorial to him, along with the Theatre of Marcellus, which immediately adjoined it. Most of the propylaeum, a rectangular entrance building, is still well preserved (and some pillars of the south front of the porticus are visible, built into the walls of later buildings). The preservation of the propylaeum was assured by its co-option as the main entrance to the medieval church of S. Angelo in Pescheria. Excavations and rebuilding work around the front of the propylaeum has been in progress for the past few years as part of a municipal project to

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create an archaeological park in the area cantered on the Theatre of Marcellus. The park design calls for excavation of the propylaeum down to its original ground level, about a meter and a half below current street level, and eventual access to the site by a series of ramps. Current works include re-routing of electrical, water, and sewage lines and further investigation of the sub-structure that was partially excavated in the 1930's. Another archaeological endeavour that is under way (in the maddeningly leisurely Roman manner) is the uncovering of the Tarpeian Rock. At this early juncture in the process we could see only some fencing and a notice that it was "unsafe to view the rock." This was Rome's special place of execution, reserved for murderers and traitors. It was located on the slope of the Capitoline Hill just above the Forum. According to Roman founding legends, the Tarpeian Rock derives its name from the Vestal Virgin Tarpeia, a Roman heroine and daughter of Spurius Tarpeius, who was commander of the Capitoline fortress under Rome's first king, Romulus. There are several strains of Tarpeia's story, but the most common tells of Tarpeia allowing the enemy Sabines to enter Rome by unlocking the gate, but only after making the Sabines swear to hand over their shields. Though Tarpeia let the Sabines into the gate, her argued purpose was to trick them into surrender or defeat. The Sabines, upon the realization, threw their shields at Tarpeia, thereby killing her. In honour of her traitorous behaviour future betrayers of Rome could expect to be tossed off of the Capitoline Hill to meet a crunching death on the rocky slope below named for Rome's first acknowledged traitor. We were now upon, or, more accurately, below Michelangelo's Campidoglio and were able to see from the base of the steps (Il Cordonata) the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius that is its centrepiece. Kind of horrifying to realise that if the early Catholic Church had known who was actually tall in the saddle it would have long ago been melted down for unnecessary junk, like so many other bronze pagan statues. Fortunately, they thought it was Constantine and left it for us to delight in.

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There was nothing left for us but to risk life and limb to get across the Piazza Venezia on our way back to the apartment. Fortunately, by now we had become expert in the Roman way of crossing streets (1000 years ago I wrote about this method in describing what I liked best about Rome) and made it to the other side, good chickens that we were. We got a good look at Mussolini's window in the Palazzo Venezia and the unavoidable, bright white Vittoriano Emmanuele typewriter that looms above all, a loud modern version of the Jupiter Capitolinus. As we approached the Palazzo Olivia we paid another short visit to the Gesù, perhaps the finest Baroque church in the world. Remarkable stuff. Afterwards, we passed by an Internet cafe and, as another symptom of our rapidly approaching departure, spent a few minutes confirming that our flight home had not changed its takeoff time. In another example of post-9/11 paranoia, we were required to produce identification before obtaining access to the computer. I suppose that they would be able to audit sites we visited and track us down if we went somewhere we should not have. It was quite late in the afternoon so we had a small and easy lunch, picking up a couple of Panini's at the end of our street. Then I took an absolutely essential nap and rested my weary bones. By the time I woke up it was almost dinnertime.

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The Ponte and the Castel Sant’Angelo A late nap of considerable duration usually produces an overdue awakening. Romans eat dinner fairly late compared to North Americans (extremely late compared to older North Americans) and you will rarely find restaurants open before 7:30; their attendance is rather light for another hour still. This is quite different from Paris where cafes serving dinner are open continuously from morning to night. I awoke just past 7 PM but as we were going to dine with Alfredo and Ada tonight, only about a kilometre from the Palazzo Olivia, no urgency was required. One of our fondest memories from our 1979 grand tour was a dinner we experienced in Florence. It was encouragingly recommended by Frommer and although it was not easy to find, what with numbers on one side of the street bearing no relationship to numbers on the other side and numbers in red having nothing to do with numbers in blue. Eventually we managed to find the restaurant supposedly run by a Contessa and her husband and were placed at lengthy communal tables which the husband continually packed tighter and tighter with a pleasant but firm ― Piccolo, Piccolo," demonstrating by his hands what he meant. Our fellow diners were 90% American and most had a copy of Frommer in front of them. It was one of those good-natured meals where the food and drink, in extremely generous quantities, kept coming at you. We still remember the enormous communal platters of tomato salad, antipasto of ravioli, main course of meat and potato, and desserts all washed down by endless carafes of house red wine and accompanied by bottomless baskets of bread. None of us knew exactly what to expect as Frommer’s description of an elegant trattoria bore no relation to what the "Contessa‖ provided for us. We made many friends of two hours duration in Florence that evening. In 1992 we tried to return to the location but couldn't detect it again, probably because it was no longer there. My never-ending explorations had turned up a similar sounding restaurant, Da Alfredo e Ada, on the Via dei Banchi Nuovi, not far from the Tiber across from the Vatican City. From a review: ‖Among the Eternal City's eternal tables, this one stands out for its simplicity and preserved-inamber authenticity. There's no sign on the door, just a card tacked to it. The wooden tables with marble tops and paper mats are probably a century old. Hand-scrawled mottos decorate the walls. Since 1946, Sora Ada has been making home-style meals in her tiny kitchen at the back, and keeps working despite her age and the death of her husband Alfredo, who

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presided over the trattoria's one long, narrow dining room for nearly 60 years. The wine comes in two colors: red or white, both from the family's small vineyard at Albano, in the Alban Hills. Note: cash only, no credit cards, but the prices are also stuck in amber.‖ We had no difficulty finding the "unmarked entrance" because towards the beginning of our trip we were in the vicinity visiting some churches and made a point of locating it. Unfortunately we were either too early or at the wrong time of the year but it was empty except for a couple of other diners and several others who came in after us so any possibility of a boisterous experience was lost. We were also unable to meet Ada herself because, like most sensible Romans, she avoids the city in the hottest part of the summer. However the family was well represented by her son and his wife who provided the anticipated hospitality. They actually cook on hot plates in the rear, one plate at the time, which is brought out by the son, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten. As advertised, it was a tiny but charming room with very old photographs, etchings, and maps affixed to the wall with yellowing cellophane tape. There are no menus because the choices are non-existent. The price is fixed and absolutely nonnegotiable. It starts with a generous portion of sliced, fresh bread accompanied by, like so many other things in Italy, extra virgin olive oil. A water glass and a carafe of red wine are filled and refilled as often as required. The wine is stored in an enormous glass jug kept in the refrigerator just inside the kitchen to the rear, well within our view. The antipasto course was rigatoni arrabiata which, while spicy, was acceptable even to Steven’s lacklustre taste buds. Shaved Parmesan Reggiano was piled atop the rigatoni. The main course was a quarter roasted chicken accompanied by roasted potatoes and still another refill of the wine carafe. Dessert is an Alfredo and Ada ritual and may not be altered or rebuffed: a pair of dense, brown sugar cookies was served to us along with two more glasses of red wine in which to immerse them. We were watched to make sure we properly dipped and finished eating the cookies. Both of them. Despite our wise resolution, given the heat, to turn down the offered espresso we rolled out of Da Alfredo e Ada prepared to walk as long as necessary and as far as necessary to digest our dinners. We decided to head towards our favourite bridge and cross it to the Vatican side of the Tiber. On our way we picked up the unmistakable aroma of a leather craftsman who, 151

like the shrewd Cinnabon franchisee, keeps his door open to attract customers. Inside we could see a venerable gentleman amid a collection of his creations. Randi, who is always trying to get Steven to buy something for himself, pounced on the opportunity as she knew he had been complaining about the worn condition of his ancient belt for at least a year. In just a few minutes I was fitted with a new leather belt cut to order, leaving the forlorn predecessor to be recycled in the shop. The Ponte Sant’Angelo is a pedestrian bridge originally constructed by the brilliant Emperor Hadrian in 133-34 AD to connect the Campius Martius to his under-construction mausoleum across the river ("your tax dollars at work"). This is the Pons Aelius which survived 1300 years until an overload of pilgrims visiting Rome for the Jubilee year of 1450 led to its collapse and the death of several hundred visitors, hopefully on their way out after they paid their fees to the Vatican. The three central arches survived and Pope Nicholas V immediately ordered its reconstruction. In 1668 it was decided by Pope Clement IX to mark what was now called the Ponte Sant’Angelo (as Hadrian's tomb had long been Christianised, which explains its survival) as unique by lining it with sculpted angels carrying symbols of the Passion of Christ. It seems a foolproof idea and from even a short distance the angels seem to be doing their work with exemplary skill and grace, setting the bridge apart from its peers and proclaiming its special importance as the main approach to St Peter’s and the Vatican. But up close, things have gone oddly wrong. The monolithic Castel Sant’Angelo, more a

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fortress than a castle, looms over the bridge with a distinctly threatening presence; its hulking shape completely overshadows the distant dome of St Peter's. And the sculpted angels upon closer inspection turn out to be rather mannered in style with their contorted body poses, masses of billowing drapery, and ecstatic facial expressions. The figures exhibit all the hallmarks of the Baroque style at its most artificial and extreme. How could this happen, especially since the artist commissioned to create the sculpted angels was none other than Gianlorenzo Bernini, sculptor nonpareil as well as my personal ideal and the namesake of the dog we brought home yesterday? Part of the problem lies in the execution. Although the statues were all designed by Bernini they were carved by his assistants and pupils. The genius made drawings of each of the angels but beyond the sketches his pupils were free to do as they wished. A tad too much delegation, perhaps? The results are decidedly mixed: even so fundamental an attribute as the size of the head varies markedly from angel to angel. Their scale, and here the responsibility is clearly Bernini's, does not help matters. Noticeably larger than life size and placed on high pedestals the figures seem almost as threatening in their heavy, looming presence as is the fortress at the end. To best appreciate the accomplishment is probably best to view the angels from the middle distance, where the individual figures merge successfully into a group and meld with the design of the bridge as a whole. To see what might have been if the Master himself had taken the time to do the work, there were two statues intended for the bridge that were entirely sculpted by Bernini. These are the "Angel with the Crown of Thorns" and the "Angel with the Subscription I.N.R.I.‖ These two, however, were deemed by Clement IX as "too beautiful" to be exposed to the vicissitudes of wind and weather. The Pope ordered replicas for the bridge and Bernini's originals remained indoors, eventually making their way to the church of San Andrea delle Fratte, near the Spanish Steps, where they hang about today. Perhaps this previous description was a bit harsh as walking along the Ponte Sant’Angelo with the Castel on one end and the statues on both sides remains one of the great delights of Rome. But it does go to show what happens when a even an exceptional artist of genius becomes too busy to maintain full control over his assignments.

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When the Emperor Hadrian, no mean architect himself (he is considered to be a primary influence on the design of the magnificent Pantheon), decided he needed an appropriate place to rest his bones for all eternity he had only to look to the West on the Campius Martius where Augustus’s mausoleum was sitting in all its cylindrical glory. The Castel Sant'Angelo was originally built by Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum. Construction commenced in 123 A.D. and was completed in 139 during the reign of Hadrian's successor, Antoninus Pius. The building consisted of a square 89m (292ft) wide base on which a cylindrical colonnaded drum with a diameter of 64m (209 ft) was constructed. On the drum was an earthen tumulus (a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave) topped by a quadriga (a chariot drawn by four horses abreast) with a statue of Hadrian. The mausoleum was connected to the city at the other side of the river by a recently constructed bridge, the Pons Aelius. The mausoleum housed the remains of Hadrian and his successors up to the unspeakably vicious Caracalla. It was originally surrounded by gardens, sheathed in marble, and the earthen mound was planted with trees and ringed by statues. The careful Hadrian carefully calculated the size so as not to exceed that of the Tomb of Augustus. As a tactful gesture, he meant his memorial to complement Augustus's structure, not compete with it, and certainly not to exceed it. 2000 years later things are quite different. It is no longer the "Mausoleum of Hadrian." It is now called the Castel Sant’Angelo owing to a miraculous mediaeval visitation. In 590 Pope Gregory I had recently been elected as Rome was ravaged by plague. Praying for relief from the terrible scourge, the Pope led a penitential procession through the city streets and as its head reached the bridge leading to St Peter's Basilica the Archangel Michael suddenly appeared atop Hadrian's Tomb, first brandishing and then sheathing his sword. This last manoeuvre by the Archangel was taken as a hopeful portent, a sign that God's anger had at last been appeased by the prayers of the faithful. When the plague shortly afterwards abated a Chapel was constructed at the spot where Michael appeared. Still another pagan monument is recycled as a Christian miracle. To certify that it was a genuine, 100% guaranteed miracle, a statue of Michael was placed on top and the pagan quadriga and statue of Hadrian melted down. At the end of the third century, when the Emperor Aurelian constructed the enlarged city walls, he incorporated Hadrian's Tomb into the city defences as a bridgehead, thus forever changing the character of the building from a mausoleum to a fortified castle. 154

From that time on its function was primarily military and periodic renovations, including the addition of ramparts, completed the transformation. For centuries it served as a defensive adjunct to the Vatican and in the 1400s a high wall topped by a covered passageway connected the castle to the Vatican Palace, an escape route that remains in existence today should it ever be required. The Castel Sant’Angelo has served as a refuge of last resort for a number of mediaeval and Renaissance popes running for their lives during barbarian invasions. Its most infamous stint as an emergency papal residence came on May 6, 1527 when Pope Clement VII fled down the passageway, leaving the Swiss guards to helplessly deal with the invading troops of the Emperor Charles V setting off The Sack of Rome. You will all be pleased to know that the next chapter will consist of still another, but probably final, digression describing that terrible disaster. So while thousands of Roman citizens are brutally tortured, murdered and/or raped, safely and comfortably within the Castel could be found thirteen Cardinals, eighteen bishops, 1000 hangers on, one Pope, and the renowned silversmith and liar Benvenuto Cellini. There is now a small museum within the Castel that is open to the public. The interior spiral ramp, which originally ascended to the chamber containing the urns of every Emperor from Hadrian to Septimus Severus, now leads to the former "hardship"

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quarters of the Pope, which has been well preserved. There is a marvellous view of the city from the upper terrace. As we walked along the Vatican side of the Tiber we passed a street market filled with vendors of junk. While Steven had just bought himself a fine belt his normally latent souvenir urge had still not been sated but it was difficult to find anything even vaguely worth buying. Finally he found a few cheaply made T-shirts and picked up a pair in the hope that they would survive at least three washings. As it turned out, they did but I wouldn't want to push them much further. We then walked past the pseudo-old Palazzo di Giustizia, which was designed by Guglielmo Calderini and constructed between 1887 and 1911. It is best viewed from the other side of the river where the Ponte Umberto meets the Via Zanardelli. It was built to house law courts and judiciary offices and possesses what is probably the most overdressed facade in the entire city. It is a perfect example of the late nineteenth century architectural phenomenon known as horror vacui, the compulsion to fill up every available wall space with elaborate decoration, to slather on the Classical detailing as if it were so much cake icing. It gave neoclassicism a bad name and caused a backlash to the stripped down, form-follows-function look of 20th-century modernism, a tragic but understandable response. It has recently been cleaned, restored, and reoccupied. When it was first built the swampy ground next to the River was inadequately prepared for the Palazzo and for decades the entire building sat empty because it was in danger of collapse. Nowadays the building receives tempered fondness from Roman residents, if not respect. It has "settled in" quite comfortably and has come to be an accepted member of the Roman Palazzo family, like an aged and eccentric aunt who insist upon wearing all her garish jewellery everywhere.

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At an apartment building adjacent to the Ponte Umberto (the bridge is considered the finest spot to view a sunset over St Peter’s) we ran into a gentleman walking, of all things, two Boston Terriers, a very uncommon sight in Europe. They were a mother and daughter, quite friendly, and a blur of black-and-white but they soon tired after the walk and were anxious to return to their air-conditioned comfort, a very familiar breed trait. It made us homesick for our dog Bailey, but not for Toronto. We continued south past the fancy delancey Hotel Raphael and the beautiful Piazza Santa Maria della Pace (where we couldn't find that great café our first morning) until we arrived at our local gelateria, Frigidarium, from whom we purchased a fine "After Eight Mint Chocolate Chip" cone which we finished before we reached the Palazzo Olivia. Two full days remain, too little time to see so much that is left within the limits of my diminishing vigour. 157

Digression #4: The Sack of Rome: Who Were the Real Barbarians? Rome has always been an attractive place to visit. Pilgrims, tourists, artists, and priests: all sorts of folk sooner or later find that all roads lead there. Occasionally, an invader wanders by to rape, pillage, and plunder, rarely staying very long but in many ways leaving their marks upon the Eternal City. In 390 BC, well before Rome had spread out much beyond their own limited borders and when it possessed little of real value, a Gallic tribe, the Senones, crossed the Apennine mountain range in search of land and eventually settled next to the town of Clusium (near modern day Siena). This was somehow perceived as threatening by the Clusians who sought help from their new friends to the South, Rome. Three brothers of the Fabius clan were deputised by the Senate as ambassadors to negotiate with the Senones. The Fabii pursued a rather aggressive form of diplomacy resulting in a battle and the death of a Gallic leader. The we-were-just-minding-our-business Gauls sent an ambassador of their own to Rome demanding the punishment of Quintus Fabius but, as described by Livy, ―those who ought to have been punished were instead appointed for the coming year military tribunes with consular powers.... The Gallic envoys were naturally - and rightly - indignant!" The enraged Senones promised war against the Romans to avenge the insult that they had been dealt. They marched 130 km from Clusium to Rome to take revenge. These Senones can hardly be termed Barbarians in the usual sense. Livy again: "Contrary to all expectation the Gauls did them [the people of the countryside] no harm, nor took aught from their fields, but even as they passed close by their cities, shouted out that they were marching on Rome and had declared war only on the Romans, but the rest of the people they regarded as friends." Quite civilised in all ways. They met the Roman army about 18 km north of Rome, at Allia. About 24,000 Romans under the leadership of Quintus Sulpicius for lined up against about half their number of Senones. It was a disaster for the image of Roman military might. When the Gauls attacked, the Roman flanks were routed leaving the Roman centre to be surrounded and slaughtered. The survivors of the right wing fled back to Rome in panic; as Livy states, "all hastened to Rome and took refuge in the Capitol without closing the gates." Leaving the gate open was a problematic military strategy. That part of the population that was able climbed to the top of the Capitoline Hill for protection while the rest of the city was plundered and most of the recorded history of the early Roman Republic, including the Twelve Tables, lost forever. Reinforcements arrived and besieged the Seonones within the city. The Romans negotiated an end to the siege when they agreed to pay one thousand pounds of gold so that the invaders would go away. Romans are good at learning lessons from their failures and 158

shortly after enriched Seonones were on their way, the Servian wall was begun to protect against any future invaders. It was 800 years until the city of Rome was again captured by a non-Roman force. On August 24, 410 AD the Visigoths under their brilliant leader Alaric completed their invasion of Italy by occupying Rome. When the Visigoths first appeared before the Aurelian walls, which had recently been strengthened and raised to almost twice the original height, they were kept at bay with payments of gold. But it seemed they wisely invested their new-found wealth to bribe a few traitorous Romans who opened the gates, admitting the foreign force. Once again the "Barbarians" were anything but. A ferocious sack had been expected but Alaric's tall, rough looking troops were not particularly malevolent. Sure, some buildings were burned down, many houses and churches were plundered, a few citizens were roughly treated, and pagan temples were ransacked with exceptional venom. But after just three days of these fun and games the Visigoths withdrew, even respecting the sanctity of St Peter’s Basilica. By the standards of the day the city had not been badly damaged but the people of Rome suffered a deep emotional shock. "It is the end of the world," lamented St Jerome, "Words fail me….The city which took captive the whole world has itself been captured." Fortunately, the popes of the time were strong and capable. Innocent I, pope at the time of Alaric's invasion, was a man of strong will and high ability who at every opportunity stressed the supreme authority of the papacy and its importance as a political and spiritual force. A successor, Leo I, a man of like determination, energy, and force of character, personally led a force in 452 to confront a real, honest-to-goodness Barbarian, Attila the Hun, and discouraged him from doing to Rome what he had already done to Milan, Padua, and Verona.

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Leo probably should have quit when he was ahead. Three years later in 455 the Vandals, led by their gifted chieftain, Gaisaric, having poured across Spain and ravaged North Africa, invaded Italy and advanced successfully upon Rome. Leo's prayers and papal authority were insufficient to prevent the Vandals from breaking into the city and pillaging in an impressively thorough manner. They remained for two weeks during which they stripped the golden tiles from the roof of the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, rampaged through the mansions of the wealthy, invaded the Christian churches, and marched down to their ships at Ostia accompanied by thousands of captives, soon to be sold as slaves, and wagons piled high with plunder. If you are wondering whatever happened to the menorah and other sacred objects brought back by the Emperor Titus from Jerusalem and depicted on his arch in the Forum, now you know. Pope Leo was able to intercede with Gaiseric and probably minimised a considerable amount of murder, rape, and indiscriminate fire setting. The ancient basilicas were spared once again and life was soon restored to normal. But this was just the calm before the storm, a brief reprieve. In the traditional, but questionable, end-of-theWestern-Roman-Empire year of 476 the ironically named Romulus Augustus attained off in you are in Rome the honour of being the last Emperor by being deposed by the German chieftain, Odoacer. The next significant invasion of Rome occurred towards the end of the eleventh century. Due to the destruction of the aqueducts Rome's population and condition had declined rapidly during the Middle Ages and it seemed hardly worth invading at all, except for the presence of the papacy with its wealth and political influence. The Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV, and Pope Gregory VII, elected 1073, were at loggerheads over supremacy. The tension between Empire and Church culminated in the councils of 1074–1075, which constituted a substantial attempt to undo Henry IV's policies. Among other measures, they denied secular rulers the right to place members of the clergy in office; this had dramatic effects in Germany, where bishops were often powerful feudatories who, in this way, were able to free themselves from imperial authority. In addition to restoring all privileges lost by the ecclesiasticals, the council's decision deprived the imperial crown of almost half its lands.

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Suddenly hostile to Gregory, Henry did not relent from his positions. He continued to interfere in Italian and German Episcopal life, naming bishops at his will and declaring papal provisions illegitimate. In 1075, Gregory excommunicated some members of the Imperial Court and threatened to do the same to Henry himself. Furthermore, in a synod held in February of that year, Gregory clearly established the supreme power of the Catholic Church, with the Empire subjected to it. Henry replied with a counter-synod of his own. So there! On Christmas night in 1075 Pope Gregory was kidnapped and imprisoned. Later freed by Roman people, Gregory accused

Henry of having been behind the attempt. At Worms, on 24 January 1076, a synod of bishops and princes summoned by Henry declared Gregory VII deposed. The papacy replied by excommunicating the king and all the bishops named by him on 22 February 1076. Unsurprisingly, Henry did not repent, and, counting on the hostility showed by the Lombard clergy against Gregory, decided to move on Italy. While at Canossa, Emperor Henry IV played the game of standing in the snow in order to repent his sins and Gregory played the game of lifting the excommunication. The sincerity of both their behaviours was proven by a serious of attacks by Henry upon Rome, the third of which, in 1082, succeeded. A treaty was concluded with the Romans, who agreed that the quarrel between king and pope should be decided by a synod, and secretly bound themselves to induce Gregory to crown Henry as emperor, or to choose another pope. Gregory, however, shut up in the Castel Sant’Angelo, where popes always run when threatened, would hear of no compromise; the synod was a failure, as Henry prevented the attendance of many of the pope's supporters; and the king marched against the Normans. The Romans soon fell away from their allegiance to the pope; and, recalled to the city, Henry entered Rome in March 1084, after which Gregory was declared deposed and the antipope Clement was recognized by the Romans. On 31 March 1084 Henry was crowned emperor by his puppet Clement, and received the patrician authority.

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Henry then marched on the Castel Sant’Angelo to complete his victory over Gregory but the cavalry arrived in the nick of time, led by Robert Guiscard, the Norman Duke of Apulia. Henry left the city, returned to Germany, and Pope Gregory was freed. The Pope was liberated, but as the people were becoming incensed by the excesses of his Norman allies, he was compelled to leave Rome. He died in Solerno in 1085. Three days before his death he withdrew all the censures of excommunication that he had pronounced, except those against the two chief offenders Henry and Clement. Gotcha last. The true Barbarians, the invaders responsible for the most violent and most destructive invasion, that of May, 1527, were the regular, Christian, God-fearing troops of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. It was Voltaire, by the way, who some years later famously said, that the Holy Roman Empire is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. The dramatis personae of this disaster were:       

Pope Clement VII Medici, usually considered to have been a brilliant Church bureaucrat before his elevation, and a vacillating, unimaginative Pope who was well over his head in dealing with the other protagonists. Emperor Charles V, who was also Charles I, King of Spain. King Francis I Valois of France. Charles, the 8th Duc de Bourbon, a cousin of Francis I of France and for a while, the commander of his armies. Later he changed sides and was the commander of the Armies of Charles V in Northern Italy. Henry VIII Tudor, King of England, a sometimes ally of Charles V against the French, Married at the time of the Sack to Catherine of Aragon, an aunt of Charles V. Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottomans and a constant threat to the eastern end of the Empire of Charles V, sometimes conspiring with the French against Charles V. Benvenuto Cellini, the volatile commander of the Papal defences in Castel Sant'Angelo, who claimed in his autobiography to have fired the shot that killed the Duc de Bourbon as the Sack began. But Cellini is a liar.  Pompeo Colonna, the Cardinal who lost the Papal election that elected Clement VII in 1523 -he led a looting raid on the Vatican in 1526 and initially shared in the 1527 Sack.  Members of the Frangipani family in Croatia, who were the go-betweens for Suleiman and Francis I of France. Any of you even slightly familiar with the psychotic political manoeuvrings that made World War I inevitable, will be able to understand the incompetent diplomacy that led to the single worst week in Roman history. In 1523 the weak and vacillating son of Giuliano d’Medici (who was murdered in the Cathedral of Florence during the Pozzi Conspiracy of Florence, 162

in which the Borgia Pope played a major role), Giulio, was elected Pope and became swept up in a political game with very strong and major players. He has been described as "learned, clever, respectable and industrious, though he had little enterprise and less decision." Poor Clement was thrown into the arena with such lions as Francis I of France, with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, with Henry VIII of England (it was Clement who denied Henry's petition for an annulment, which led the way to his unapproved divorce from Catherine of Aragon, marriage to Anne Boleyn, and split from Rome), and with Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottomans, all of whom were whittling away at each other's territories (and they all thought that included Italy). He had neither the army nor the money to compete with these high rollers, who were constantly arranging alliances, breaking them, betraying each other, and then realigning again. A greater man might have stayed a little longer on the tightrope, but Clement did not possess sufficient balance. Let's go back a few years. Francis I had named Charles, Duc de Bourbon as Constable of France, leader of all the French military forces. The Constable and Francis led some very successful military campaigns in Italy, but they did it on borrowed money. Francis was supposed to pay off the Constable and couldn't, so the Constable eventually switched sides and was made Governor of Milan by Charles V. Thereafter he was known as the Constable de Bourbon. Charles V eventually also ran short of funds and couldn't pay the mostly German mercenary and regular armies that the Constable was running for him in northern Italy. The Constable allowed his army to sack some northern towns in lieu of wages and benefits and sent emissaries to Clement VII in Rome saying that he was having trouble controlling his army, and that was true enough, albeit insincerely stated -- they knew Rome was full of treasure. Clement offered 60,000 scudi as "protection money" and it was quickly bumped up to 100,000, but it wasn't really enough money to keep the Germans in the north. They threatened Rome. Meanwhile, back in Rome, there occurred a relevant sideshow: family rivalries were bubbling over once again. The fabulously wealthy Colonna family, perhaps in league with the Constable's "negotiators" in Rome, raided the Vatican, causing a great deal of damage and carrying off treasure on September 20, 1526. Pompeo, the Colonna cardinal that organized and led the desecration, lost his See, but he kept the treasure. Fair trade-off for a member of the wealthiest family in Rome. By the spring of 1527, the Constable's army of Protestant mercenaries and Catholic regulars -- ostensibly part of the professional and disciplined army of Charles V -- was moving southward. They were bribed to bypass Florence, but the real target they had in mind was Rome. Contemporary reports say that the Constable's forces even abandoned

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their artillery en route -- they were in such a great hurry to get to the loot in Rome -and that the Constable was almost the army's prisoner rather than its leader. Clement tried to rally support, but the other big players were either genuinely busy elsewhere or were fed up with Clement's constant vacillation: none of the big boys showed up. He managed to stir up a few hundred poorly armed Romans to defend the city, but they quickly were forced to retreat to the Castel Sant'Angelo, where the artist and general tough guy Benvenuto Cellini had been put in charge of the defences. They managed to keep the Constable's forces from taking the Castel (partly by throwing statuary down on them), and in the initial attack the Constable took a crossbow bolt (perhaps in the eye) and died quickly. Cellini later claimed to have personally fired the lethal shot, but he was a notorious liar and self-aggrandizer so that can be discounted. That was on the 6th of May. While the defenders cowered in the fortress, Rome was looted and burned. With no leader and no desire for one, the invaders ran riot through Rome. The worst of it lasted eight days, although some authors have said that the chaos lasted much longer. The Pope and his meagre forces languished in the Castel for almost eight months. During that time the big Roman families, of course, indulged in a lot of reciprocal raiding and revenge killing. The Colonna initially joined in the Sack, but Cardinal Pompeo finally was said to have been sickened by the slaughter perhaps because he soon began to fear for his own safety. He led the Colonna and their dependents into the chancellery and established his own defensive perimeter. By the end of summer of 1527, 45,000 Roman men, women, and children were gone, either fleeing as refugees or killed in the Sack: no one has ever been able to determine the real extent of the dead or missing. Rome's population hit rock bottom at about 10,000, less than 1% of its population during the reign of Tiberius. Churches, shrines, monuments were looted and destroyed -- only the Sistine Chapel escaped the general looting, because that was where the Constable's body had been taken to lie in state. Lucky break. Contemporary witnesses were unanimous that the Catholic regular soldiers of Charles V as well as the Protestant mercenaries (and many local gang leaders -- i.e., the heads of the big families) had participated in the murder and looting. Some have written that the 1527 Sack of Rome ended the Renaissance in Rome. Many art historians believe that the Renaissance (or at very least Rome's "High Renaissance") was at an end. The fact is that a new period, conveniently labelled the "Late Renaissance,‖ followed immediately and that the Baroque period produced some of Rome's most highly and intricately decorated churches and palaces does not impress these critics. In fact, art and architecture flourished in Rome in the years after the sack, and the Baroque style spread through Europe from Rome and became the new currency in both fields. The Sack caused much destruction and looting of portable art and artefacts, but a simple inventory will show that much of the stationary decorative art survived -- the great pre-Sack frescoes and altarpieces in churches and chapels and palaces are still there today, and they were mightily augmented in the century after the Sack.

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Certainly some statuary was torn down and destroyed (but far less than that by the church of Classical, pagan works), but Rome's greatest sculptor, Gianlorenzo Bernini, was still to come. Bernini stood so far above his Roman Baroque contemporaries that they are often forgotten, but their work is everywhere in Rome. One of the long-lived Gianlorenzo's young students -- still under the master's influence -- produced the "multimedia" illusionist extravaganza on the ceiling of the Gesù (Exaltation of the Name of Jesus) in the 1670s, a century and a half after the Sack. With all this -- and much more -- going on after 1527, it's hard to carry the case that the artistic lights went out all over Rome in 1527. So the answer is: No, the Roman Renaissance did not end with the Sack of Rome. In sum, many died, many were tortured, many were impoverished, and many were made homeless, all in order to ensure that the troops of Charles V were properly paid. Nobody was punished and, except for those tens of thousands killed, tortured, impoverished, and made homeless, nobody suffered. It was Clement himself who crowned Charles V in Bologna in 1530, apparently with no hard feelings. It was, unlike the "barbarian" invasions of the fifth century, a violent Sack with few longterm consequences for the city which was sacked.

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Martedì, 20 luglio

Rome's largest Piazza: the Piazza del Popolo

We wasted our time perusing our bus map and it took but a few minutes to discover that we can't get there from here. No bother; we knew we were able to get to the taxi stand on the Corso from here and that's what we did. A brief and pleasant ride took us to the awe-inspiring and massive Piazza del Popolo. As always, our first assignment was to find an acceptable joint for coffee, never a difficult thing to do in Rome, and we soon sat down on the early morning sunlit patio of the Canova. 166

This is a fairly upscale area of Rome, and directly on the Piazza, so we were unsurprised when handed a bill for our cappuccini and cornetti for sixteen Euros. The location and view were, of course, first-rate and the service was exceptional. The cornetti even were swathed in slivered almonds, a nice touch, and glasses of chilled water were served on the side. This last should be a universal practice but it is not. A nice virtual tour, 360° all around, can be found at: http://www.italyguides.it/us/roma/rome/renaissance_and_baroque/famous_squares_fountains/piazza-del-popolo/piazza-del-popolo.htm

We were quite snug but the first obvious thing to do was to walk around the oval and see the many pleasures of the Piazza del Popolo. Many folks believe that a reasonable English translation would be "Piazza of the People" but its name actually derives from the poplars that once stood in front of the Piazza's major church, Santa Maria del Popolo. Its

raison d’être is the adjacent presence since antiquity of the major Northern entrance to the city, the Porta Flaminia, now called the Porta del Popolo, a break in the massive Aurelian walls. The current portal is of Baroque design, redesigned by Bernini (who else?) for the entrance to the city of Queen Christina in 1655. That great Roman road, the Via Flaminia, was constructed in 220 BC to provide safe and efficient transport from Rimini on Italy's east coast over the Apennine Mountains to Rome. Like most great Roman engineering projects, it is named for its maker, the Consul Gaius Flaminius. Nowadays, most visitors approach Rome from the south -from the airport at Fiumicino -- and they usually pass through the ancient city walls at the Porta San Paolo. Its Pyramid of Gaius Cestius signals the presence of antiquity in no uncertain terms but it is nevertheless only one of the walled city's many back doors. The front door to Rome is, and always has been, all the way across town on 167

the north side, at the Porta del Popolo. To appreciate the Piazza del Popolo's key placement, an act of historical imagination is necessary. Until the twentieth century, when the modern city finally outgrew the ancient walls, the Porta del Popolo marked the boundary between urban and rural. Inside laid the Piazza, outside lay fields and vineyards. The journey was probably by coach, and at a certain point in the middle of the countryside the driver would unexpectedly draw his horses to a halt and the passengers would clamber out, finding themselves on a hilltop looking south. "Ecco Roma," they would shout with the distant city in view at last. As the coach drew closer to the ancient walls the road, the Via Flaminia, would become straight as an arrow, like so many ancient Roman roads. Upon arriving at the Porta del Popolo the travellers would once again disembark and walk through the gate from country to city to confront the Piazza del Popolo: on the left the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, straight ahead the Egyptian obelisk of Ramses II, and at the opposite end the twin churches at the head of the famous trident, three long straight streets that plunged deep into the urban core, one leading to the Spanish Steps, one leading to the Campidoglio, and one leading to the Tiber riverfront. No other city in Europe proclaims its presence with such a dramatic architectural centrepiece. We were impressed. Randi even crossed through the gate and caught the marvellous and impressive, Bernini/Baroque view from the other side. But let us return inside and begin our tour of the Piazza del Popolo in its centre. When you see an obelisk in Rome, there is a good chance it was placed there by that brilliant Pope, Sixtus V, whose rule of five short years (1585-1590) entirely transformed the physical city. Earlier popes, in between fathering nephews and appointing them as Cardinals, defined city planning as a matter of single, isolated streets. Sixtus V had grander ideas. You will recall that during mediaeval times 168

Rome had shrunk drastically and occupied only the area of the Campus Martius, the rest of the city, waterless, being essentially abandoned. With the advent of the Renaissance the city had begun to revive and its derelict areas to the east began to attract inhabitants. Various popes repaired various aqueducts. The population, which had shrunk from over 1,000,000 to 15,000 inhabitants, began to increase at a steady rate. Rome, moribund after more than 1000 years of decline, was at long last on the rise. Sixtus, builder also of the Acqua Felice, understood that orderly expansion required a master plan. He raised four ancient obelisks in the centre of four conspicuous empty spaces, spaces that are now the Piazza del Popolo, the Piazza di San Pietro, the Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano, and the Piazza dell’Esquino, and he laid out a network of long, straight streets around and between them, streets that connected the city's major outlying monuments both with each other and with the streets that his predecessors had laid out before him. These new thoroughfares gave the burgeoning settlements around the outlying basilicas easy access to the existing downtown and formed a skeleton around which the city could expand and grow. The 23.2 m (73 feet) high obelisk that centres the Piazza del Popolo was originally built around 1300 BC by the Pharaoh Ramses II and placed in the holy city of Heliopolis. In 10 BC Augustus determined a need for a centrepiece at the Circus Maximus and felt an obelisk would serve as a reminder to folks that it was he who had conquered Egypt some twenty years earlier and added it to the Empire. He ordered its transportation to Rome and subsequent erection on the famous chariot race grounds adjacent to the Palatine Hill. In 1589 Sixtus V had his favourite architect and principal obelisk-transporter Domenico Fontana relocate it to the future Piazza del Popolo. While the raising of Sixtus’s obelisk was the seminal act giving the Piazza a centrepiece, marking it is as significant, it was a later Pope, Alexander VII, who was responsible for the masterly architectural gesture that definitively established the Piazza's character. In 1658 The Order of the Discalced (unshod) Carmelites made it known they were planning to build a new church at the beginning of the Via del Corso, the major thoroughfare that will eventually terminate at the Piazza Venezia. When Alexander got wind of the plan he intervened. He didn't want to prohibit construction, 169

he told the Order, but he insisted that a second -- and identical -- church be built across the street, and that both churches must face the Piazza rather than the Corso. This was not as easy for the architects to accomplish as it was for the Pope to order. The plots of land involved were of different sizes, the left being longer and narrower. The architects Carlo Rainaldi and Carlo Fontana used different shapes for the pair: Santa Maria di Montesanto (above, left) in a shape of an oval, and Santa Maria dei Miracoli (above, right) as a circle. To assure that the differing dome shapes were disguised as effectively as possible Bernini was called in. The optical illusion is remarkably successful: the glancing eye reads the dome as identical whereas a concentrating eye will discern differences. The twin churches are not particularly revolutionary in design and show influences from Rainaldi’s facade at Santa Maria in Campitelli and Cortona’s Santa Maria della Pace but they possess an aptness of place that renders them instantly memorable. As one architectural critic wrote, "The churches do not merely monumentalise the entrance into the city, they also make it sacred: they are the first harbingers of St Peter's, the destination of pilgrims arriving from all over the world." Upon our arrival at the twin churches, only the one on the right (S.M. dei Miracoli) was accepting visitors this morning. Begun in 1675, it was completed six years later. Built on a circular plan, due to its plot, it possesses a lovely eighteenth century bell tower and an octagonal cupola. The interior possesses a lovely stucco decoration designed by Bernini's pupil, Antonio Raggi. The highlight is the high altar which showcases the miraculous image of the Virgin that has given the church its name. The other church on the Piazza, Santa Maria del Popolo, is adjacent to the Porta del Popolo and is older than the twins. In 1099 Pope Paschel II erected a Chapel dedicated to the Virgin over the tomb of some Roman aristocrats, the Domitii. It was enlarged and consecrated as a church by Pope Gregory IX in 1240. Baccio Pontelli rebuilt it between 1472 and 1479 on the orders of Pope Sixtus IV making this one of the first Renaissance churches. Martin Luther, who once bedded down in a monastery adjacent to the church, would have felt at home in what was, at the time, a very plain design. The Baroque is famously intolerant of plain designs and in the 1650s Bernini was called in to decorate

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the nave. Atypically, his embellishments were somewhat less than dramatic, eschewing coloured marble and gilding. Taking his cue from the fragments of entablature that already existed above the nave, he expanded them to form a continuous entablature that follows the lines of the arches. As Baroque improvements go, the result was unexpectedly consistent with the plain travertine half-columns below. We did not visit Santa Maria del Popolo to view Bernini's respectable additions, but to view the wondrous art contained within. This is one of

Rome's museum churches, better known for its art than its architecture. The second chapel on the left was designed by Raphael in 1513 as a burial site for the immensely wealthy banker (and first owner of the Villa Farnesina) Agostino Chigi. He is said to have spent 22,000 ducats on his Chapel, 6,000 more than Pope Julius had offered Michelangelo for his proposed Pharoanaic tomb in St Peter's. What he got for his money is the creation of an independent room with a High Renaissance personality all its own, a miniature and modernised Pantheon, a foretaste of the new St Peter's under construction across town. This photograph is posted for our information also, as the Chapel was covered from head to toe for restoration and we couldn't get a peek.

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Second on the right, which we did get to see, is the Cybó Chapel, constructed 150 years later for Cardinal Alderamo Cybó by Carlo Fontana. The Cardinal, being a holy and modest man, consciously attempted to outdo in splendour and grandeur Raphael's work across the nave. Wisely, however, Fontana chose not to compete with Raphael on his own terms and banished sculpture and mosaic from the Chapel. He permitted painting and some minor gilding only in the dome and at the altar. Otherwise, he opted for pure architecture, using only a single material: variegated marble, always and everywhere. The church contains even more art of the highest quality. The corner niches contain four statues of prophets. These are: Habakkuk and the Angel (Bernini) typically bursting out of its frame, Daniel (also Bernini), Jonah (Lorenzetto and Raphael), and Elijah (also Lorenzetto and Raphael). And more: Annibale Carraci’s altarpiece, Assumption of the Virgin. The frescoes by the brilliant Pinturicchio (favourite of the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI) in the Della Rovere (enemy of the Borgia Pope) Chapel. The completely unrestrained lateBaroque funerary monument of 1771 for Maria Flaminia Chigi is by Paolo Posi. These we all saw. But what we really wanted to see, what we had been looking forward to since we arrived in Rome, were the two Caravaggio paintings in the Cerasi Chapel, just to the left of the high altar. These masterpieces are The Conversion of St Paul and The Crucifixion of St Peter.

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Given the realistic nature of Caravaggio's work it is somewhat surprising that these two were actually commissioned and accepted by the good church people of Santa Maria del

Popolo. Completed in the first years of the seventeenth century, they were part of a string of prestigious commissions for religious works featuring violent struggles, grotesque decapitations, torture and death. For the most part each new painting increased his fame, but a few were rejected by the various bodies for whom they were intended, at least in their original forms, and had to be re-painted or find new buyers. The essence of the problem was that while Caravaggio's dramatic intensity was appreciated, his realism was seen by some as unacceptably vulgar. It did take several tries for Caravaggio to satisfy his patrons and, given the nature of what was ultimately found acceptable, one must wonder at the character of what he had first offered them. But for these two tourists, despite our impious anticipation, it was not to be. Both the Caravaggio masterpieces were missing, loaned out to the Villa Borghese for the 400th anniversary of his death. No, the exhibit had not yet opened there when we were at the Villa a few days ago. No Caravaggio's for us on this day. Bummer. To add insult to injury we were shortly to be ushered out of the church unceremoniously well before we were finished because of the impending funeral service of some big shot or other. We knew we would not be back here this visit and it would have to be considered unfinished business. We will complete our visit to the Piazza del Popolo in the next submission.

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A Tale of Two Adjacent Augustinian Memorials Having been so rudely ejected from Santa Maria del Popolo just so some pompous panjandrum can have some nice words said over him, we continued our walk around the Piazza del Popolo by reviewing some of the most interesting fountains in Rome. When Luigi Valadier was assigned the task of redesigning the Piazza in 1814 one of his first decisions was to remove an old fountain that had been spouting Acqua Vergine water since 1572. In Roman tradition the fountain was recycled, initially across the Janiculum in front of the church of San Pietro in Montorio and then again in 1950 to the Piazza Nicosia. For 240 years it probably provided the first drink of water for new arrivals to Rome and, along with the obelisk, was the first internal Roman sight for them. The Piazza del Popolo is the only place in Rome where the waters of two different aqueducts are distributed. The lions in the centre of the Piazza are fed by the Vergine Nuova while the great mostra (demonstration fountain) on the Pincian Hill is fed by the Vergine Antica. At the centre of the piazza is the Fontana dell' Obelisco, a group of four mini sphinx-like lions crouched with their backs to the obelisk. Each bronze mouth expels the thinnest conceivable fan, or wedge, of water impelled with such power that it more resembles a sheet of glass. Each lion is mounted upon a pyramid of six steps giving the water sufficient space to disintegrate into a shower as it descends into the circular basin below. There are other lion fountains in Rome which spout, or drip, or gush water but these are the only lions that transform water into glass.

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Adjacent to the Piazza is the Pincian Hill which rapidly rises from one end. The sharp incline was used by Valadier to provide something of a giant waterfall as a finishing touch to his great scheme. It comes gushing from a triumphal arch on the hilltop and is perhaps Rome's greatest cascade; it feeds two fountains at opposite ends of the Piazza, both surmounted by statuary. The first of these is immediately below the Hill and displays Rome, in this instance a muscular maiden helmeted and with spear in hand, who stands above the reclining figures of the rivers Tiber and Anio. On the opposite side of the Piazza, seemingly kilometres away, is the other fountain fed by the giant cascade from above. This is the Fontana di Nettuno, a graceful depiction of Neptune escorted by Tritons, one of whom has caught a fish whose size he will never need to exaggerate. Both were designed by Giovanni Ceccarini and constructed from 1822-23.

Having finally exhausted the pleasures of the Piazza del Popolo, we had to choose which one of the three major roads departing from the Piazza, collectively labelled "The Trident," we should continue along. These are the Via del Babuino (named for the deteriorated statue of a baboon that is a sad survivor of an Imperial Roman demonstration fountain), the Via del Corso (named after the horse race course that once ran on it), and the Via di Ripetta (named for the Porto di Ripetto: ―porto" = port, "porta" = gate). We took the last of these because it hones most closely to the shore of the Tiber as it passes through what was once the wasteland of the Campius Martius and comes closest to both the Tomb of Augustus and its neighbour, the Ara Pacis. You will recall that in Republican and Imperial times the "Field of Mars" was devoid of significant population, being further from sources of water which focused on the area of the Seven Hills, and was used by soldiers to train and aristocrats to build their large public works such as the 175

Theatre of Pompey and the Temple of Apollo. The Campus lay entirely outside the pomerium (the Sacred boundary of the city of Rome) throughout the period of the Republic. Between the reign of Claudius and Hadrian, the pomerium was extended several times to include most of the Campus area south of the Pantheon, including the prata Flaminia district. The northern part of the Campus was included inside the pomerium only after it was extended to the defensive line of the Aurelian Wall when construction began. As an area outside the sacred and legal boundary of Rome, the Campus has served as a scene for several important functions of civic life, especially during the Republican period. First, promagistrates and generals were forbidden within the pomerium and lost their imperium upon crossing it. Thus, generals awarded a triumph were required to remain outside the city along with their troops and were lodged in the Campus Martius until the day appointed for their triumphs. Soldiers also lost their status and became citizens again upon crossing the pomerium. For this reason, the Campus was used for the assembly and training of soldiers before military campaigns. Meetings of the Comitia Centuriata were also held outside the city and voting was conducted at the Saepta in the Campus, so that soldiers could participate and vote with their centuriae. After the period of the great Civil War (c.50-30 BC), the emperor Augustus and his chief subordinate Marcus Agrippa began a series of public works that transformed much of the central area of the Campus. Agrippa’s plan included the Pantheon (later completely rebuilt by Hadrian and still hanging around) of the gods and a hot-air bath. The buildings were constructed on a north-south axis with a public Basilica of Neptune between them. Within a few years, Agrippa expanded his baths to create the magnificent Thermae Agrippae, fed by water from a new aqueduct. Agrippa built this Aqua Virgo to bring water from springs at the eighth mile of the Via Collatina into the central Campus. Just to the northeast of this collection of buildings along the Via Flaminia, Agrippa also contructed a portico dedicated to his daughter. The Porticus Vipsania is decorated with a stunning map of the world as it was in Augustus’ reign.

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Augustus added his own buildings to the Campus, mainly to the north of Agrippa’s and along the Via Lata. In addition to his Mausoleum, Augustus created an enormous Horologium (sundial) using an obelisk brought from Heliopolis as its gnomon. The great sundial was just to the west of the Ara Pacis, erected by the Senate to commemorate peace with Hispania and Gaul. While Hadrian's mausoleum (now the Castel Sant'Angelo), specifically rooted on Augustus's model, was found useful by the papacy as an emergency escape route and fortress and has therefore survived mostly intact, the tomb of Rome's most significant

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political figure has not flourished at all. There is no site in Rome that I find more heartbreaking or more pathetic than that of the tomb of Rome's greatest Emperor. Gaze, as we did circumnavigating the ruin, upon this disgraceful mess:

Compared to Hadrian's fortress-like mausoleum across the river, the ruined Mausoleo di Augusto possesses a forlorn and neglected look, as if all Rome had temporarily parked it to one side and then forgotten about it. Built by Augustus during his lifetime, it was -- and still is -- the largest tomb in the Roman world and served as a burial site for all emperors until 178

Trajan decreed that his own ashes were to be placed directly under his column in his Forum. Originally, the circular base was faced with travertine and surmounted by a huge mound of earth almost 150 feet high, planted with cypresses. During its long history of mistreatment it has been profaned as a fortress, a vineyard, a formal garden, a beast-baiting arena, a bull ring, a circus ring, a theatre, and a concert hall. In 1937 Mussolini, that great and tasteful renovator, tore down the concert hall as part of a plan to make the tomb into a centrepiece for a new, modern square, the Piazza Augusto Imperator. In laying out the Piazza Mussolini's planners faced the insoluble problem of the three churches around the perimeter all facing in the wrong direction. Two of the churches were hidden behind modern buildings and the third, the excellent San Carlo di Corso, was simply ignored. Its backside is still a backside, no matter how shapely. To make things even worse for the desecrated tomb, the architects attempted to achieve a stylistic synthesis of Classical and Modern that would reflect the glory of Mussolini's fascist regime, but the result is a brutal and brainless sort of power that does nothing to show off the Piazza's ancient devastated centrepiece. Il Duce had an inscription placed on one of the new, hideous edifices: "The Italian people are an immortal people who forever discover a season of spring in their hopes, their passions, their greatness." This is a ludicrous boast indeed, given the context. Time and the City of Rome have been much kinder to its contemporary neighbour, the Ara Pacis, the Altar of Heavenly Peace. The Ara Pacis Agustae, or Altar of Augustean Peace, is a Roman sacrificial altar enclosed in a screen of Parian Marble beautifully carved in high relief with allegorical and ceremonial scenes accesorized with elegant details. True, for a millennium the sacrificial altar had been sinking and breaking up (more accurately, the ground around it has been rising with Tiber silt) and was out of sight, out of mind in the sedimentary nature of Roman monuments. But it was rescued in 1938 by that brilliant archaeologist, Benito Mussolini, who decided that the various pieces of the altar that were turning up in the area required protection and reassembly. He ordered the construction of a protective structure at the place of its original location, directly across from Augustus's mausoleum. In the years since Richard Meier, an American architect, has designed a Pavilion to house the altar and a museum describing its history and that, opening in 2006, is what we find there today. 179

Originally named the Ara Pacis Augustae but usually shortened to just Ara Pacis, the Altar of Majestic Peace was consecrated in 9 BC. It was commissioned by Augustus and the Senate to celebrate his victories at Gaul and Hispania and the establishment of peace in the Roman Empire. At the time of its construction, it was considered one of the most significant monuments in all of Rome. The altar was originally located elsewhere on the Campus Martius. It was placed in such

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a way that the shadow of the sundial-obelisk on the Campus Martius (the obelisk, typically, has since migrated to the Piazza di Montecitorio) would fall on the Ara Pacis annually on the birthday of Augustus, 23 September. The Ara Pacis Augustae stood in the flood plain of the river Tiber, where it became buried under four metres of silt over the centuries. The first group of sculptures was rediscovered in 1568, others in 1869, and still others in 1903. They were dispersed among various museums and various cities and it required the firm and unrefusable request of Mussolini to return them to Rome and to each other. The Ara Pacis was sculpted from white marble and the scenes found on the altar depicted traditional Roman piety. The Emperor and his family as well as historical and mythical figures figured prominently into the sculptures on the altar. Figures of priests and other individuals wearing laurel crowns of victory can also be found on the Ara Pacis. There is still debate on the meaning of some of the panels (in particular one on the east side) but what is certain is that the reliefs on the north and south side of the altar show a procession that took place on the 4th of July, 13 BC. Most notable about the figures on the altar is the fact they are a classic example of Roman sculpture. Unlike Greek sculpture, the figures actually resemble real individuals and are not idealized. For example, recognisable in the above South frieze of the altar are Augustus, Livia, Octavia, the grandchildren and potential heirs Gaius and Lucius, and other members of the Imperial household.

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The Ara Pacis is a happy story of the rediscovery and reconstruction of a significant Imperial monument and of its housing in an increasingly attractive setting. Would that all Roman buildings had received the same protection and care over time. While there has been some criticism that Meier’s new setting is cold, we found it a remarkable compromise between protecting the altar from the elements and placing it within a reasonable and helpful context. You can walk around the entire altar and each side contains, in varying amounts of wholeness, reliefs of great historical significance. Downstairs there is a small museum with three-dimensional exhibits depicting the original location of the altar within the Campius Martius and the history of the relocation of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that were eventually connected back together here. There are also computers allowing you to discover how it all originally sunk beneath the silt until its eventual resurrection. Very nicely developed and well worth a visit. This was a tale of two monuments: one lovingly restored, the other criminally neglected.

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And the Hours Dwindle down to a Precious Few As we left the two Augustinian monuments we understood that we were at the beginning of the end of this Roman visit. Sure, there were things we didn't see and things we didn't do. We hadn't got out to Tivoli for the Villa d'Este and Hadrian's Villa or back to Ostia Antica. We never got to Santo Stefano Rotondo, a rare round church with fascinating frescoes dramatically picturing the gory realities of martyrdom. Bramante's brilliant and influential Tempietto on the Janiculum Hill was missed. There was still time for these and possibly a few others but I was beginning to wear down and, at any rate, it was our end-of-visit habit to revisit and walk around some of our favourite haunts such as the Campidoglio and Trastevere. But, it was not quite yet time to leave and I was hardly prepared to spend an entire day resting and wasting time in the apartment. We wandered over to the Spanish Steps and revisited Bernini's father’s Fontana della Barcaccia at the base. Despite the midday heat there was little room on the Steps to sit and none around the fountain to walk around it. We found the main shopping street which begins at the Piazza di Spagna and followed the Via Condotti for several blocks, window shopping with our wallets staple-gunned to our pockets as we passed by Dior, Gucci, Valentino, Armani, Hermes, Prada, Dolce e Gabbana, Salvatore Ferragamo, and other dreadfully overpriced emporia. I think we can happily leave Rome without a €1500 cashmere sweater to

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declare at customs. At any rate, I have never been an admirer of Italian fashions for men, finding them overly tailored and severe. Besides, I am rarely found in anything but Levi's. I presume Randi feels the same way about Italian women's fashions but I made a point of not asking her. Via Condotti was, even during the Ancient Roman era, the street which started from the ancient Via Flaminia allowing people coming from the other side of the Tiber River to get to the Pincian hill. In 1500 it was called Via Trinitatis, for the church which was located at the end of the street. The current buildings began to be built between 1500 and 1600, and the modern atmosphere of the street, as we know it today, began with the building of the Spanish Steps in 1700. For lovers of poetry the Keats-Shelley House (where Keats died in 1821) is located in the Piazza Spagna just to the right of the Spanish Steps at the end of Via Condotti. It is named for the conduits that channelled water to the Baths of Agrippa. In between the shops were residences and small commercial buildings whose entrances were off lovely courtyards, many of which had charming fountains, and many of these had sculpted lions. I think that, if mandatory, Randi and I could be cajoled into living off one of these fountained courtyards without too much effort. Soon enough we found ourselves at our home base, the Piazza Navona, and people watched for a while until we remembered that was time for lunch. Showing a lack of creativity, Steven insisted upon returning to that chain restaurant, L’Insalata Ricca, because he had visions of ripe, red, beefsteak tomatoes disappearing forever from his life when he left Rome. Service was once again slow but his Insalata Caprese was once again well worth the delay. There were at least two enormous tomatoes sliced on the plate, separated by Buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil leaves and served, as it must be, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It was so large that he even offered to share some with 184

Randi, a major act of selfless, loving generosity on his part. Randi had an Insalata Siciliano with corn, sun dried tomatoes, olives, a generous sprinkling of feta, arugula, basil, and various greens. We had carbonated water (gassata) and were rewarded with a mild and surprising breeze which made the canopy wave. There had been a chance of showers today, the first in quite a while, but it never materialised. So it was once again dry and hot as we shuffled back to our apartment for a siesta. We crossed the Tiber one more time into Trastevere via our usual route, through the Campo dei Fiore, across Via Giulia and the Ponte Sisto. We wandered around the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere and then went to dinner at our usual place, the Alle Fratte di Trastevere, where we sat at our usual table on the patio. We had our usual red wine and still water, beginning with artichoke bruschetta. Steven had veal limon with roasted potatoes and Randi had our favourite, Penne Siciliana with eggplant and mozzarella. Certainly I can see the reasonable point made by anyone that it would probably make more sense to eat at different places instead of returning to the same one three times in eleven nights. That is just the way we do things, he explained. In Toronto we go to the same Greek restaurant every month even though it is in a district with many Greek restaurants and is certainly no better than many. However, we feel very comfortable and at home there and that is the most important part of the experience for us. We made our final Tiber Crossing over the Ponte Garibaldi to view once again the ruins of Largo Argentina which were beautifully lit. Then it was to the Campidoglio to see again Michelangelo's masterpiece of urban planning and to say goodbye to the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius.

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We had read that there was a nice view over the Forum behind the Palazzo Senatororio. This mediaeval building’s foundations were constructed over the ruins of the Tabularium, a structure in the Forum that dates to Republican days. The Tabularium occupied the space between the temple of Jupiter on one side of the Capitoline Hill and the steps which led up and out on the other. We know from an inscription found in the building that it was erected by Quintus Lutatius Catulus in 78 B.C. It was used as a place to store the state archives, such as deeds, laws, treaties, and decrees of the Senate. The tower seen at the right was added around 1300. Following a narrow road to get behind the Senatorio, we certainly were able to look over the Forum but, very disappointingly, it was not at all lit up as we could certainly have reasonably expected. Randi even had the idea of looking around for one of those one Euro machines where a coin allows for five minutes of light. So not only are they now charging to enter the Forum (it had been free for most of the twentieth century), they won't pay for lighting.

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Scandalous. illuminated.

We could see, in the distance, the Colosseum which was beautifully

We next investigated a way down the Capitoline Hill from the rear, the Via di San Pietro in Carcere, which led to perhaps Mussolini's worst desecration, the Via dei Fori Imperiale. This is a major road he ruthlessly drove straight through the ruins of the Imperial fora, cutting into their midsections and separating their halves. Plans to improve the traffic connection between the Piazza Venezia and the Colosseum were first drawn up by Napoleon city planners in the early nineteenth century and plans were revised regularly during the next hundred years. Nothing was actually done, however, until 1932 when Mussolini ordered the recent excavations of the Imperial fora filled in (!!!!) to make way for a wide, straight boulevard that would permit him to look out of his office window in the Palazzo Venezia and see the Colosseum, without obstruction. The resulting Via dei Fori Imperiale is rigid and formal in feel, more Parisian than Roman, and utterly antithetical to Rome's spirit. Every now and then an enlightened soul develops plans to shut it down and re-excavate the stretch, but so far they have come to nothing.

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The Imperial Fora consist of five separate walled compounds constructed by Julius Caesar and four emperors between 54 BC and 113 AD. These partially excavated (and partially covered over by asphalt) ruins were once the nerve centre of Imperial Rome. During Republican times the nucleus around which the city grew was what we now call the Roman Forum, at the base of the Palatine and Capitoline hills. But as Rome's power and influence increased, this Forum became increasingly crowded and by the last half of the first century BC it was literally bursting at the seams with monuments, temples, public buildings, and people. It was Gaius Julius Caesar who, as was his custom, took the bull by the horns to resolve the problem. He recognised that additional civic space was needed and in 54 BC he began construction of the Forum of Caesar, a large open rectangle flanked on its long sides by covered colonnades and containing public buildings and the forecourt of his new Temple dedicated to Venus. Caesar's Forum became the model for the four adjacent Imperial fora constructed over the next 150 years by the Emperors Augustus, Vespasian, Nerva, and Trajan. It is sizeable parts of these fora, civic centres used for both private and public business, that are located underneath Mussolini's folly. The largest and most interesting, as well as best preserved, is the Forum of Trajan. Much excavation has had to be done to excavate the ruins of this forum, which consisted of several parts: a public square, a large temple (the Temple of Divius Traianus), two libraries and the immense public building, the Basilica Ulpia, which measured about 60 x 170 metres (197 x 558 ft) in size. It was the largest basilica in the city, in its time. Many of its marble columns still stand today. The Forum of Trajan also contained a public market, whose ruins are quite well preserved. Trajan's Market, a large complex of warehouses, shops and offices where the Romans would gather to purchase goods and conduct business, was built between 107 and 110 AD by the Emperor Trajan's favourite architect, Apollodorus of Damascus. Trajan's Market was set into the side of Quirinal Hill and served to complete the 188

complex. Apollodorus also built a large monumental facade consisting of a half exedra bordered by a row of columns. At both ends were smaller exedras that were covered by a half-dome.

The best-known and most historically significant resident of Trajan's forum was at its entrance, between the two libraries. This is the Column of Trajan, a freestanding 38 m (125 ft) artistic, historical, and engineering marvel. It consists of nineteen marble drums laid on top of one another carved with 155 scenes containing over 2600 figures, all illustrating Trajan's two campaigns against the Dacians (modern-day Romania) in a spiral band more than 180 m (600 ft) long. Unlike the later Column of Marcus Aurelius which is marked by generic battle scenes, Trajan's Column illustrates specific historical episodes in almost cinematic detail. Its remarkable variety of depictions makes the carvings one of the best historical records available of Roman warfare techniques. It is also his burial site; by special dispensation of the Senate (required because interment within the city walls was illegal) his ashes were placed inside the column’s base at his death in 117 AD. Initially, a statue of an eagle topped the column, but after Trajan's death it was replaced by a 6 m (20ft) tall statue of the emperor himself. In 1587 the statue was replaced again, this time by one of St. Peter. Lord knows why as he certainly had nothing to do with it.

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Trajan’s Forum and Column were, unlike the older Forum, beautifully lit as were all the Imperial fora ruins, at least those parts that were visible to the right and left of that road. We crossed this remnant of Mussolini's gift to Rome, not a particularly safe thing to do, to get to the Piazza Venezia and be overwhelmed, as we are expected to be, by the vision of the Vittorio Emmanuale monument, often referred to as "the typewriter" or the "wedding cake." The Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emmanuelle II (National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II) or Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland) is a monument to honour the first king of a unified Italy. It occupies a site between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill. The monument was designed by Giuseppe Sacconi in 1885. Sculpture for it was parcelled out to established sculptors all over Italy. It took forty years to build and sprawls all over the north slope of the Capitoline Hill.

It is one of those things that you either like, or don't. Randi likes it, I don't. It is a split personality, what it is is lamentable, what it does is, I must admit, spectacular. In my view it is difficult to view it as anything than a calamity. It is pompous, vainglorious, overwrought, and overblown. Architecturally, this mountain of antiseptic white Brescia marble service primarily to support a massive colonnade thrust high into the air in heavy-handed triumph. It is a grab bag of allegorical sculptural groupings meant to represent many things: law, sacrifice, concord, strength, action, thought, victory, and 191

just about everything else including the Triumph of Patriotism, the Triumph of Labour, the Seas of Italy, and Rome itself. In the midst of all this is the grave of Italy's Unknown Soldier, accompanied by an eternal flame and guarded by two live sentries. On the other hand, and given a larger perspective, it does possess some unexpected compensating virtues. It may be soulless, but it is the keystone element in Rome's cityscape and, because of its massive size, it does that job quite well. At any other spot in Rome such a man-made mountain would be impossible for any city to assimilate but here, bang in the centre of Rome at its highest peak, it is an immensely helpful orienting device. Stand anywhere in Rome’s seven hills and chances are you will see it. At night it is at its best. Without the Roman sun over bleaching the white marble almost to the point of hurting your eyes, the floodlights that come on at dusk transform the monument to attain, almost, what I might even call magnificence. The gold of the colonnade mosaics shines forth with unexpected splendour and a contrast of light and shadow produces an increase in three-dimensionality that renders the whole massive composition both more real and more fantastical. Set against a pitch-black sky, this ponderous lump of marble finally becomes what its builders intended: a mighty cast of thousands of Roman-triumph extravaganza that would carry all aesthetic objections, even mine, before it. This is no longer bad architecture, this is great theatre. At night the Victor Emmanuel monument is, quite simply, a sight to behold. Ultimately, we're both right. We wandered back to the enormous transit complex at the Piazza Venezia but every one of its buses was parked and dark. It's possible that if we had waited some bus driver would turn up to let us on, but we were tired and, in an act I find increasingly easy to accept, we took a taxi back to the Piazza Navona. We each ordered a gelato (Steven -- chocolate chip and Randi -pistachio) and ate them while wandering around this great Piazza enjoying our favourite mime, the Sphinx, and finding our favourite busker, the guitarist, who was performing an extremely credible version of Free Bird. Then it was back to the Palazzo Olivia for our penultimate night's rest. I am not particularly enthusiastic about leaving Rome on Thursday. 192

Mercoledì, 21 luglio

The Last Day We must have set off quite late this Wednesday, the last full day of our visit to Rome. Late enough so that the cafes on the Piazza Navona were themselves awake, including our old friend Tucci, and prepared to serve us our cappuccini and cornetti just in front of the magnificent Fontana de Quattro Fiume. Revisiting what we have made a point of examining daily was an appropriate beginning for a morning in which we planned to return to some of our favourite churches for a pleasant farewell. Just across the Piazza is Borromini's (and seemingly everyone else's) St Agnese in Agone, whose opening hours are fairly tight but also awakens earlier than most. Then it was to the French church, San Luigi dei Francesi and the Jesuit church, Sant’Ignazio. If it has a nave and transept and is located in the Centro Storico, we probably stopped briefly by this morning. As we headed back towards the Piazza Navona on the Corso Rinascimento, Randi recalled a shop she had read about, Ai Monasteri. As its name suggests, all of its products are made in monasteries across Italy. She bought some herb and lemon soap and some beeswax lip balm. Ai Monasteri, which was founded in 1894 and has been managed by the Nardi family since its inception, also sells perfumes, honey, candies, and other food and health/beauty related items. Considering the prices, it is clear that while the manufacturers have probably taken a vow of poverty, the Nardi family has not. There is a Museum adjacent to the Piazza Pasquino, which you might remember is just around the corner from the Palazzo Olivia, located in the Palazzo Braschi. The Palazzo Braschi is in the heart of Renaissance Rome, between the Piazza Navona and Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. Cosimo Morelli (1732-1812), an architect from Imola, was commissioned to design the building for Luigi Braschi Onesti, the nephew of Pius VI (1717 - 1799), who was elected Pope in 1775. It was built from wealth accumulated 193

thanks to the unprincipled granting of many privileges from the Pope to his nephew, proving that the infamous Renaissance papacy is hardly unique in its corruption. Palazzo Braschi is tangible evidence of Papal nepotism. The building was constructed on the area where the fifteenth-century edifice of Francesco Orsini, the Prefect of Rome had stood, and where Cardinal Oliviero Carafa and later Cardinal Antonio Ciocchi del Monte lived in the 16th century. The latter commissioned Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane to build a tower decorated with historical scenes at the corner of Piazza Navona and Via della Cuccagna. At the end of the 17th century, the Orsini regained possession of the building and embellished it with numerous masterpieces. The building then passed to Prince Caracciolo di Santobono who sold it to the Braschi Onesti family in 1790, and they demolished it the following year to make room for their Palazzo. You can easily see in this old print the talking statue, Pasquino, is directly on the corner. Due to the financial problems of Duke Luigi Braschi Onesti (once the papacy had moved on to another family), the building had not yet been completed by 1816. The building was sold by the Duke's heirs to the Italian state and then it became the seat of the Ministry of the Interior and, later housed the bureaucratic headquarters of Mussolini's fascist party. After the war, three hundred evacuated families lived in the Palazzo until 1949. Serious damage was caused to the frescoes and floors because of the fires that were lit there.

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Since 1952, Palazzo Braschi has been the home of the Museum of Rome but only recently, in 1990, did the state-owned property pass to the City Council. The Museum of Rome possesses a wide variety of articles relating to the history of the city from the Middle Ages to the first half of the 20th century. They bear witness to the transformations that occurred geographically and in the various aspects of cultural life in the Capital. Furniture production, carriages and sedan chairs, architecture and urban features, mosaics and frescoes saved from demolition, medieval ceramics, woodcuts for fabrics of the 18th and 19th centuries, clothing, and tapestries from those periods all contribute to the collection. The Municipal Print Collection is of great value. It consists of drawings and water colours, prints, engravings and old books that recount the history and development of graphic art and its techniques from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The works are a representation, iconographic and documentary, of the topography and history of the city. A collection of rare photographs from the Municipal Photograph Archives relates to the graphics collection and provides a complete picture of Roman photography from the 19th to the first half of the 20th century.

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We found the Museum pathetically inadequate compared to the Museum of Paris (Musée Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris) and the Museum of the City of New York. Organisation and coherence are not their long suits; neither is comprehensiveness. In a word, it was disappointing (although our expectations were not very high to begin with). There was, however, a saving grace which made this tiny

excursion worthwhile. This was an exhibit of the satirical illustrator, Pio Pullini, focusing on his work in Rome from 1920 to 1945. Pullini was born in Ancona in 1887, moved to Rome when he was 19, and the mostra (exhibition) covers the years when Pullini provided illustrations for the Tribuna Illustrata and L'Urbe. He also did some paintings, often involving those he was close to, and -- a highlight of the show -many necessarily "secret" watercolours that record his reactions to Roman life under Fascism and the German occupation (including loading Rome's Jews into trucks for eventual transport to concentration camps). Others depict the liberation of Rome by the Allied armies. This is someone I had never heard of 196

but even this brief exposure was sufficient to educate us and obtain our appreciation. It was an excellent exhibit in an otherwise mediocre Museum. At our local Panini dispensary we were unimpressed by the remnants left by the lunchtime rush so we each ordered a slice of pizza to take to the apartment, one with eggplant, one with tomatoes and mozzarella. While Steven slept Randi returned to the shopping wars, as well as the Pantheon. She knew of a wonderful shop across the street from Bernini's Minerva (the elephant statue with the obelisk, of which there are no plastic tchotchkes in all of Rome). The Via dei Cestari has, for centuries, served as the main shopping street for religious

vestments and objects. Our family already has enough of these (none) but other types of shops have polluted the district. She bought some pasta sauce mixes (dried herbs and vegetables, such as those we saw in bulk on the Campo dei Fiori), an artichoke spread for home-made bruschetta, a sun-dried tomato spread, and some spicier comestibles suitable to gift Zachary at Christmas. On the way back to the Palazzo Olivia, not having exceeded her budget, she found a nice shop that sold hand painted dishes on the corner of the Rinascimento. She bought a beautiful ceramic plate in brilliant shades of blue and orange. Unlike the spreads, the dish is still with us. With the few Euros remaining following the spree, we had one last dinner and what could be 197

more proper for our Last Supper than pizza? We chose a different Pizzeria in the neighbourhood, not wanting to fight again for a second glass at Montecarlo, the Antica Birreria Peroni. As its name suggests, it specialises in beer and, because of our ―when in Rome… philosophy,‖ for the first time on our visit we did not have wine with dinner. It had a narrow but pleasant patio and we split one artichoke pizza and one Quattro Formaggio pizza. The latter was entirely white, without tomato sauce, but, like all good Italian pizza, did not contain garlic (explained a waiter) and was therefore edible. We concluded our evening as we have ended them all, with a gelato from the Frigidarium and an extended perusal of the fountains and fauna of the Piazza Navona. Randi did some preliminary packing and whatever else was necessary as tomorrow morning we had scheduled a limo to take us back to the airport and, tragically, back to Toronto. It has come to an end. Sadness prevails.

Giovedi, 22 July

Roma is Amor Spelled Backward I can date my passionate love affair with Rome to our wild and life-threatening taxi cab ride at midnight in 1992 when I, under protest, acceded to Zachary's strong request to add it to our itinerary for that Grand Tour. The city gave me, by means of a lunatic taxi driver, a bewildering and thrilling initiation. During that insane cab ride Rome seemed to wheel crazily around us, and throughout that brief stay of four days I never quite succeeded in finding my bearings. However, while we were constantly getting lost, that in itself was an adventure. A strange energy surged through me, a passion for the place which has never faded but only increased with each subsequent, but, stupidly and carelessly, far too infrequent return. Whenever we are considering a trip to Rome, I experience that same anticipation, energy, and excitement. Hardly able to contain myself for being there again, I feel as if I am returning not to a city but to the welcoming arms of a loved one. For me Rome has remained a difficult, complex, but endlessly fascinating lover whose charms are impossible to resist. There are cities more beautiful than Rome (we were, after all, in Paris just two years ago) and surely many that are simpler and easier to navigate (New York et al), yet none has held my interest as Rome has. There is an Italian expression: "Roma, non basta una vita," (one life is not enough for Rome) and it is certainly even truer that three weeks over twenty years are wholly insufficient. Shame on me! Idiot.

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The only way to really experience Rome and to begin to understand the city is to walk about in it. It's not even necessary to follow any particular itinerary. I've always felt sorry for the masses of tourists who are yanked about from one great popular historical site to another in air-conditioned buses, or herded through museums and churches in unwieldy groups led by guides spouting endless statistics (that is clearly the necessary task of post-facto bloggers) and nuggets of often unreliable information. What can they get out of such visits but bewilderingly kaleidoscopic view of the capital's many wonders, a passing impression of historical time as reflected by such familiar monuments as the Colosseum or the Trevi fountain? We came for, this time, a laughingly inadequate twelve days/eleven nights but it would not be fair to say that we would have better off to stay home and watch the Travel Channel. This is a city that makes demands upon your attention, that requires a commitment to its leisurely exploration. Its ancient Roman artefacts, its gleaming Renaissance palazzi, its great Baroque basilicas, its dozens of treasure-filled churches, its Piazzi and Fontanas and statues, its maze of narrow cobbled streets in the Centro Storico and Trastevere, exude an aura of time endlessly indulged and can be appreciated only in the intimacy of personal exploration. And even then you will find that whatever time you may have spent in the city, you will long for more. Like Hawthorne, Goethe, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Twain, and so many other artists and writers, you will find yourself lured back to it time after time by the fascination it exerts. For Rome, one lifetime is not enough. Nobody knows that more than this sixty-four-year-old who wished he had discovered Rome much earlier. Too little, too late. It shames me to realise how little I knew of the city before our too brief visit in 1992 and even the lengthier, second visit in 2007. How little I read up on its history and archaeology, how little I knew of the papacy, how little I knew of Renaissance and Baroque Rome. I understood this time how necessary it was for me to hit the books, to familiarise myself with the basic history of the kingdom, Republic, Empire, Renaissance, Baroque, and the nineteenth century Risorgimento. And so for more than a year I was online at Amazon and Abebooks finding and purchasing -- and reading -- several bookshelves of absolutely fascinating literature.

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Fortunately, we also had the good sense to understand that a list of items to see should not be rigidly pursued, no matter how much we knew about or was interested in them. A walk anywhere in Rome simply cannot be hurried. There is no substitute for a random stroll through the snarled cobweb of the Centro Storico, pausing every few metres to look around, to look up at the building walls where, no matter how familiar the area or how many times we have crossed into it, we always spot something that we hadn't noticed before: a cornice, an inscription, a fragment of a ruin, an arch, a statue. Rome cherishes her past (but not necessarily maintaining it) and nothing is ever discarded here, although it may be buried for centuries or relocated across town several times. This is one reason why it took an entire generation to build the subway system. Everywhere the engineers dug, they came across some memento of the city's glorious past and all work had to stop, often for months, while archaeologists and experts from the Dipartimento di Antichità e Belle Arti (Department of Antiquities and Fine Arts) evaluated the find and determined how best to preserve it. There is a scene in one of Fellini's lesser movies, Fellini’s Roma, where diggers were required to stop work when they broke into a room of an ancient Roman domus whose walls were painted with frescoes as vibrant as the day they were finished. In the movie, joy at the find was short-lived as within five minutes of contemporary air entering the room, the frescoes began to fade and the ancient Romans who lived there and were depicted also disappeared forever.

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Traditionally, Romans have never been sentimental about their great heritage, and in many ways it's a miracle that so much has survived from the past since the collapse of the Empire 1500 years ago. Buildings and streets have been constructed out of the marble and stones stripped from monuments; gold, brass, and silver have been appropriated to decorate the palazzi and villas of popes and their families; statues, paintings, and relics have been vandalised or carted off to be sold to private collectors. Even the city's greatest icon, the Colosseum, has lost much of its upper walls to the Farnese Palace and other vanity projects. The great roof of the Pantheon is barren of cover because of a foreign invader’s lust for a precious metal and the bronze vault of its porch now finds itself in St Peter’s Basilica, chopped and reformed into Bernini's baldacchino. Then there have been the periodic foreign invasions that have contributed to these depredations. Only the sheer amount and size (and sometimes dumb luck, such as mistaking Marcus Aurelius for Constantine, thereby preserving the oldest equestrian bronze in the Western world) of what remains have prevented the city from becoming a wasteland, although it does require a great leap of imagination to picture the magnificence of the Roman Forum from what is left.

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These are the thoughts that ran through my mind when we awoke on that final morning, dragging our baggage and recyclables into that tiny elevator and down to the office where Carla the manageress, as promised, was at her desk early in case the limo she had arranged did not turn up. Frankly, my dears, I wouldn't have given a damn if it had never appeared but this is the New Italy of reliable promptness, and he was five minutes early. He drove us through boring suburb after suburb to Fiumicino where we checked in with absolutely no difficulties and purchased our duty free presents and self-gifts. A few bottles of liquor (Limoncello, Amaretto di Saronno) and several boxes of Italian cookies to spread around co-workers and friends. Since banks never accept coins in exchange, we had to get rid of all our euro coinage as they would be useless back in Canada. I find myself despondent now that this project is completed. It is as if I have not actually returned home until this final chapter is completed and shipped off. It is finished, the die is cast, and I don't know if I will ever return. And that, my friends, is truly disheartening. I have admitted impediments to the meeting of true minds. And hearts. 202

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

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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

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