Dear Recyclers,
We had a free day with no tours planned so we wandered around Rome. In particular we headed to the Villa Borghese and surrounding gardens. This is a tremendous green space akin to our Bot Gardens and seems to be where Romans come to get away from the traffic, noise and touristy pockets of their lovely city. Here you will see Italian families hiring these cool four and six seated bikes and having races up and down the gentle slopes. Here you will also find Italians walking their pampered pooches who are also enjoying the social opportunities of hanging out with other dogs. If the Westie is the preferred breed in Positano, then the dachshund is the preferred breed of Rome. They are every where and in addition to the pure bred is a cross breed dachshund and terrier which improves the body line of the sausage dog and results in this lovely wiry looking but soft coat of great brindle colour!! Great little dogs. The gardens are behind the Spanish Steps and are a great escape from the constant traffic hum.
Prior to heading here, on our Umbrian hosts suggestion we headed to a local trattoria for Sunday Lunch. The place is called Dal Pollorolo. And folks, it was simply stunning, we started with a Zucchini frittata followed by roasted lamb with rosemary potatoes and the best peas EVER !!! The peas were cooked off then added to a frypan that had a little olive oil and crisp bacon and garlic - quickly tossed around together to blend the flavors - bliss. This we washed down with a beautiful Rosso do Montefalco of Sangiovese and sangrantino grapes. Highly recommend this place to eat !
We didn't need to eat that evening so we headed home for some light nibbles and an early night before our tour of the Vatican.
The next morning we met our Guide, an American Arts/History major who had studied and now lived in Italy for ten years. We commenced our tour of the Vatican beginning with the Museums. Italy was technically made a country only as recently as 1850 or thereabouts when all the independent states, communes, and regions unified under one rule and a King of Italy. However, only two kings ruled and the last two actually lived in excile because they weren't that popular with their countrymen.
On this discontent Mussolini came to power and in 1946 he created a republic. For many this is when Italy was actually created. During this time of upheaval, the Pope had been a virtual prisoner within the walls of the Vatican although the Catholic Church actually owned alot of area within Rome and of course, what is referred to as the Papal States, - Tuscany, Naples etc. What he did in creating Italy, was to give the Pope title only to that land within the Vatican walls and the Pope was free to make it a separate country, not pay taxes to the Italy but it was an effective way of curtailing the power of the Pope and creating a single unified country. In exchange, the Pope was required to open up his galleries and museums to the people of Italy. Now today the major source of Vatican revenue is from tourists where the average number of visitors PER day is 22,000.
We headed into the Galleries to see what we thought was going to be an overabundance of religious art, of which, now in the final strait, we had more than enough Mary's, Jesuses and the others to last a lifetime. But we were in for a major surprise. Yes there was some religgy art but what astounded us was this plethora of beautiful ancient roman stuff that this mob had simply lifted from the beautiful homes, temples and buildings of ancient Rome and had simply re-used, incorporated or collected it for value sake.
On many of the gallery floors are 2000 year old mosaic tiles that used to be the floors of the ancient roman baths throughout Rome. They are in the most amazing colored marbles of greens, reds, yellows and the now extinct porphyry marble which is a dark purple. They have the most beautiful roman statues littering the place everywhere you look and they have this most enormous circular bath that belonged to Nero' wife (his second) which she used to bathe in using Donkey's milk - as you do! Also they simply uplifted the marble from the floors and walls of the roman buildings and used it to build the rooms of the Vatican and adorn the walls of the Basilica.
One interesting fact about all those white roman statues and busts that we didn't know. Apparently they weren't white at all but were always completed painted with skin tones and their clothing, hair and eyes were painted in full colour (unless the statues had precious stones such as emeralds and sapphires for eyes)but the paint did not hold to the marble or stone and hence when recovered where all white and assumed always to have been white. It was only with the advances in technology that they have been able to discern paint residue on them!!
We headed through many a gallery/museum and along the way our guide picked a particular masterpiece or statue for specific comment. She showed us the specific statue that Michaelangelo used as a model for his "Christ" in the painting "the Final Judgement" which is the painting on the alter wall of the Sistene Chapel. I will come back to this later. He took four years to do the ceiling which he wasn't that keen on doing but his patron, the Medici's had offered his services to Pope Jullius as a gesture of goodwill, after they had finally worked out a peace treaty of sorts having avoided an assignation attempt by the previous Pope. Nice people, these dudes.
Now firstly, it's a myth that he painted on his back- he didn't. He invented an arched system of scaffolding to do the ceiling and as I said, it took four years but he stood up the entire time. He had never painted before. He was a sculptor. The Sistine Chapel was once the private chapel of the Pope. Now it is used as the chamber for the enclave of Cardnals when electing a new Pope- and a major revenue generator! When he first started the ceiling, his figures are small and he realized his mistake in proportion so he simplified his design and made the figures larger. He was commissioned to do something with Christ and the Apostles on the ceiling. He doesn't. He does the old testament stories (noah's ark, creation of man, woman, the banishment from Eden etc) but no apostles. He in fact does nothing from the New Testament at all. Instead he puts in 6 pagans and 6 Jewish courtiers and no one notices!
They all decide it is a masterpiece despitenot fulfilling his brief and he gets commissioned for a lot more money to do the adjoining wall behind the small alter. So this is the Final Judgment painting. It takes 8 years to complete. Using the model of the ancient roman statue which is based entirely on the Greek fashion of an extremely ripped male torso, he paints Christ in this manner. When you look at this artwork, he actually paints every body in the same fashion so they all look as if they have been to the same gym - even the female bodies are incredibly muscular and their breasts look like weird implants, their necks as thick as rugby players and their arms and legs bulging with definition. There is a lot of homo-eroticism in the painting and our guide pointed out two guys kissing in the top right hand corner of the painting, so one can only assume that they all had bad eyesight or they were more tolerant in those days than they seem to be these days.
From here we were to head to the Basilica and go up into the Dome but we were advised that they had closed the Church to the public without notice because of some cardinal mass and that we would need to reschedule. Bad luck if you only had one day here but that is what they are like. Their systems for information are sadly lacking and a strong sense of disorder is not too far below the surface.
So with our day freed up a little earlier than expected we did what any self respecting person would do- we went shopping, then to a bar and then to dinner.
God works In mysterious ways........
Kelly & Siobhan
Xxx
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