Rome - December 28, 2011 - Coliseum

Coliseum and traffic

The Coliseum, (originally the Flavian Amphitheater) what wonder, what death, what amazing spectacles this place has beheld: hand to hand combat, lions. elephants and the occasional tiger all the way from India. The Christians and other political prisoners being torn apart by wild animals! Wild animals! It’s just like any game show on Fox! The Arena covered in Sand over the wooden boards.

The arches are magnificent and above each of the entrances there is a number that relates to the seating area. I still can’t believe that I actually got to hang out in here.

You can almost smell the death reeking from the stinking sands of the arena, though that might just be a burst sewer pipe….ok, I lie we’re not in Naples yet!

Leonardo landscape from Coliseum

Funnily enough the place did not get its name from the fact that it is large, but from a statue that used to stand nearby. The statue was originally erected by Nero in the atrium of his giant palace the Domus Aurea. After Nero was forced to commit suicide (“Qualis artifex pereo” bwahaahaa! What an egotistical pr!ck!) the oval pond of his pleasure garden was turned into the foundation of the amphitheater and eventually the statue was moved here, given a halo and renamed Apollo. Apparently this became the landmark for the area, not the great hulking stone amphitheater but some ruddy great gilded statue of Apollo.

While waiting to get in (there was an extensive and somewhat horrific line that seemed to move not) just like at the Vatican people were constantly approaching us to join their tour group, get a private guide, etc ad naseum. Eventually one of the guys came up and was speaking with an Italian accent about getting us in to the Coliseum with some tour, I was about to respond when he saw that we each had the "Roma Pass" in our hands. He dropped the Italian accent and said in a fine East End voice: "Oh, you’ve got the Roma Pass, just go through the middle queue no waiting.”

Temple of Venus and Rome
from Coliseum

Coliseum arch

We migrated over to the middle queue and we did move much faster than the others on either side, but then we hit a stop...We waited for a few minutes, then a few more and then and we were catapulted into a fast track line. Roma Pass goes in the turnstile, pops out at the top… Boom! Coliseum baby, we're in! Roma Pass! It pays.

Seeing this great building where so much gladiatorial combat took place was sort of the main course, being followed by dessert in the form of the forum Boaraium where the first gladiatorial combat took place in the 2nd century BCE.

The interior of the Coliseum

Rome - December 28, 2011 - View from Vittorio Emanuele

View from the top of the Vittorio Emanuele II
Monument, Palazzo Venizia is on the right

Reached teh summit of the monument and wow!

The view is fantastic! The Palazzo Venizia is right there in front of the monument. The balcony of this palace is where Mussolini addressed the people of Italy during his mad and terrible cannibalistic feast for power. Because he was, well mad and apparently a terrible lover.

You get a full view of Rome and on a clear day in December you can see a very long way indeed.

Rome from the top of the Vittorio Emanuele II monument (St. Peters is in the background on the right)

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Vittorio Emanuelle II Monument

Vittorio Emanuelle II

Vittorio Emanuele II- Big. What can I say? It’s big. My Mother (and many Americans of her generation who had visited Rome referred to it as the Wedding cake). Yes, big…and white…very…very white. Completed in 1922 it drips with ornament, winged victories, personifications of glory, fame and other such trophies of the typical megalomaniac. The entire thing just screams “eat me! I’m sugary and delicious!”

Close up it just overwhelms to the point where one just feels numb. This was the first time I have ever been inside and gone all the way up to the top.

Inside the Vittorio Emanuele Monument

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Column of Trajan

Column of Trajan: Built in 113 CE as part of Trajan’s imperial forum it once stood in a rather small piazza behind his basilica and wedged in-between two libraries. These were at least two stories tall so you could actually see the column from several levels, unlike today. It is quite striking in the modern era, even  as it rises out of a haze of exhaust fumes in the center of a busy motorway.

Once it was topped with a statue of Trajan and there was (or rather still is ) a legend that the column base or top contained an urn with Trajan's ashes, Wikipedia said that the senate voted for such a burial, not sure about their sources though.

The column now has a big ol' honkin' statue of St. Peter at the summit, placed there by Pope Sixtus the V, though I am sure he did not do it himself.

Right next to this is Trajan's Market. A multi story brick building, probably once faced with stone, that served as an indoor market. One of the first shopping malls if you will. Each floor had different vendors, oils, textiles, terracotta and made goods etc.

Trajan's Market

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Pantheon and Around

Dome inside Pantheon

Pantheon

The Pantheon is an awe inspiring building. Two thousand years old and sporting the worlds largest unreinforced concrete dome, it never fails to impress. The inside is lit only from the oculus in the center of the ceiling.

Once dedicated to all of the gods (or at least the most important ones) it is now, and has been for 1300 years, a Catholic church. It is also the burial place of Emanuelle II, Umberto I, Rafael and Queen Margherita (yes the one the pizza was named for….mmmmmm pizza)

Piazza della Rotunda: In the center of the piazza is another obelisk. This one was taken from the Temple of Ra in Heliopolis some time during the Roman Imperial Period. The Pantheon is, well the Pantheon a magnificent building of the Imperial Roman Period.

Piazza Della Minerva: Another Obelisk? This one is also from Egypt, from Sais to be specific. It really hasn’t moved much over the years having been brought to Rome by Diocletian in the late 3rd century CE to decorate the nearby temple of Isis (which had a lot of obelisks it seems). Sometime in the mid 17th century it was placed on a rather whimsical elephant shaped base, which was carved by? Bernini of course, have you not been paying attention. I tried to get a good picture of the elephant, but it is undergoing restoration.

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Area Sacra dell'Argentina

Cats at the Cat Sanctuary

Cat chillaxin' outside the Cat
Sanctuary

The site of three very-very old temples. Since this is Rome that is saying something.

The temples are simply known as A, B and C.  This is also the location of the curia of Pompey, it was here that Julius Caesar was murdered by the senators on March 15, 44 BCE.

Even cooler than this little tidbit is the cat sanctuary in the southwest corner of the archeological site. They have a website, it is cool. Check it out.

Round temple (Temple B) at the Area Sacra dell'Argentina

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Ara Pacis

Inside Ara Pacis

Ara Pacis Museum

Ara Pacis from the north

Ara Pacis. One of the things that I did not actually expect to have time to visit, but we did. The altar was commissioned by the senate of Rome and dedicated to the Augustinian peace. It is quite an amazing piece of sculpture and luckily was buried under the silt of the Tiber for centuries. Dug out on Mussolini’s orders in the 1930’s it now has a new museum which I thought was a rather nice airy building. Perfect for seeing the exquisitely worked marble.

The long sides of the altar enclosure have an incomparable array of imperial portraits. While gods and goddesses frolic on the front and back, oh and people sacrifice pigs.

A scale model shows the the altar in its original location near the sundial that had the obelisk nomen that is now in front of the Palazzo Montecitorio. I mentioned that in an earlier post.  

There was also an exhibit on the photography of war, a rather depressing subject at the best of times. Extremely moving, extremely morbid and horrifically striking. Though I suppose that was supposed to be the point.

Some dude outside the Ara Pacis listening to the audio guide

Rome - December 28, 2011 - San Carlo al Corso

San Carlo al Corso

San Carlo al Corso is dedicated to Saints Ambrose of Milan and Charles Borromeo (see San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane). Borromeo was a bit of a character, suppressor of heresy, burner of witches and generally the life of any party. Funnily enough we would run into him again in Milan when we visited the crypt of Milan Cathedral where his creepy silver covered face peeks out of his rock crystal coffin. I’m pretty sure I took a picture of the front of San Carlo as it is right on the Corso and must have passed it half a dozen times.

The picture through the arch mentioned in the last two posts looks rather picturesque.

Rome - December 28, 2011 - San Girolamo dei Croati

Barrel Fountain

Connected to San Rocco by a medieval looking sky bridge. Currently San Girolamo dei Croati is the chapel of the Croatian College in Rome, I did not know that there was such a thing. It appears to have had its name changed after the independence of Croatia from Yugoslavia. Not open to the public, however the facade is a rather delightfully rare renaissance exercise in decorative restraint.

Didn't get a picture of the church, but of the fountain built into the central pillar of the bridge. Its got a barrel, really! Tis' awesomeness.

Rome - December 28, 2011 - San Rocco

Santa Rocco

San Rocco and San Girolamo dei Croati: Both of these churches are across the road from the new Ara Pacis Museum. San Rocco was originally attached to a hospital which was demolished in the early 20th century. It was founded by that most unlikely of popes Alexander VI (Borgia). I was impressed by the heavy Palladian treatment of the front, however this is a nineteenth century addition. Still bloody magnificent though.


There is a medieval looking sky bridge connecting San Rocco to the church to the south; San Girolamo dei Croati. Currently San Girolamo is the chapel of the Croatian College in Rome, I did not know that there was such a thing. It’s a pleasantly calm renaissance façade. The central support of the bridge has a rather unusual fountain in the shape of a barrel, while the arches themselves have a rather delightful view towards the apse of San Carlo al Corso. I have read that this bridge was built in the 1930
s, though I haven't been able to find that source since.

There was also a fabulously burned out Lancia Thema parked right here under the bridge. Didn’t ask, didn’t want to know.

Medieval looking bridge between San Rocco and San Girolamo dei Croati

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Tomb of Augustus

Mausoleum of Augustus

Leaving the Piazza del Popolo we headed south along the via del Ripetta with the hopes of catching a glimpse of the Mausoleum of Augustus. Which we did. Not really as impressive as the mausoleum of Hadrian, but still the final resting place of the first emperor of Rome. Eventually the tomb would be ransacked and ashes dumped out. So who knows, might still be there ground into the dirt.

Like it’s later and more inspiring mausoleum of Hadrian the tomb was turned into a fortress in the middle ages. The fortifications were torn down at a later date leaving this sort of stumpy tumulus hidden behind a fence.

In its heyday two granite obelisks flanked the entrance. One is now up behind Santa Maria Maggiore and the other is in front of the Quirinale Palace.

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Piazza del Popolo 1

Santa Maria del Popolo

Piazza del Popolo

Piazza del Popolo: This piazza seems to have it all. A genuine Egyptian obelisk from the reign of Ramses the Great (though originally erected by Seti I, the Pharaohs was in the habit of reusing monuments. In fact this was quite a common practice. Scraping the name of one pharaoh off and substituting their own name next to a list of fairly generic “magnificent deeds”. You know the kind: “I slew mine enemies, burned their fields and did not leave one temple un-desecrated, slaves we did take the survivors and then we slew them too, meaty jam we did make of their flesh. For I am the mighty Scratched-Out-Name and my glory shall live forever…” yeah, about that.

Or in Shelley’s words:

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

This one was re-erected in the square in 1589 by our old friend Sixtus V (he do get around don’t he?). There is a pair of twin churches. Begun two years apart in 1679 and 1681 each with a fat dome.

The floor plans are posted on signs next to each to show that the domes are only identical from the piazza side. Because the lots were different shapes the domes are as well. One is actually oval and the other round, however from the front they look the same.

Twin churches, Piazza del Popolo

Twin palaces designed in the 19th century on either side of those. Neoclassical-Egyptian lion fountains (four) surrounding the obelisk and a sweeping set of stairs and a fountain with Neptune, statues with facis, trophies of roman arms and ship prows in bronze. At the top of this is a sort of creepy nyphmaneum that looks pretty low rent when compared to the rest of the piazza. It seriously looks like a graveyard for lost statues.

To top it all off there are two domes and a tower on the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, the final dome is over the police station. It is a giant Freudian nightmare of symbols, soft yet voluptuous curving domes, and tall towers and obelisks thrusting upwards towards the sky, fountains spewing water, into irregular oval basins, a gateway or “portal”, wow, this whole piazza is just sick and wrong. Maybe I should lay off the psychiatry books for a few days.

Porta del Popolo: The Aurelian walls are here along with the ancient gate Porto Flamia which was redone by Bernini in the mid sixteenth century on orders of the pope for the entry of Queen Christina of Sweden. I am not sure when the name was changed to Porta del Popolo. All in all it looks rather silly.

Porta del Popolo, formerly Porta Flamia

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Medici Looking Lion

Not one of the real Medici lions (which are now chillaxin' in Florence), this little guy was hidden along a gravel trail that lead down from the Pincian Hill to the Piazza dell Popolo.

I though he looked kinda cute.

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Pincian HIll Water Clock

Water clock, Pincian Hill, Rome

I actually did have a plan for walking all the way up here, not just for the magnificent views of Rome, but a little known hidden treasure.

This mysterious something super in the Pincian Park is the water clock. Reminds me of the steam clock in Gas Town, Vancouver, BC.

I really want to compare the two of them. This was built in 1867 and sits in the center of a rustic looking fountain, think a vignette in a Calvert Vaux or Alexander Jackson Davis book on landscaping from the 1850’.

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Pincian Hill and Obelisk

Obelisk of Antinous

Pincian Hill, Park &
Expensive Restaurant

If you  walking up Viale della Trinita dei Monti like we did then you will come to a fork in the road, take a slight right onto the Viale Adamo Mickievicz and within a few minute on should see the obelisk in the center of the piazza Bucharest on the right (east).

Pincian Hill and Obelisk: This obelisk was made for Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli as an adornment to the tomb of his lover Antinous, who some say was drowned in the Nile as a ritual sacrifice. I think I already mentioned that. So there is your Egyptian link, Hadrian was obsessed with Egypt.

Anyway, this park with its neoclassical architecture, switchback carriage lane and monumental staircase and sweeping views of the city was created during Napoleon’s brief rule of Italy.

The obelisk was finally set up here in the Piazza Bucharest in the 1820’s after being set up at the Vatican after earlier being robbed from the tomb of Antinous and set in the center of the circus Varianus by our good friend and certified nutter Heliogabalus.

Pincian Hill with Obelisk of Antinous

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Viale Trinita dei Monti

There are some beautiful views of Rome from here and it is darn near abandoned. No tourists, no gentlemen selling wooden choochoo trains, plastic tripods, or fake Louis Vuitton handbags.

All we did was take a left in front of Trinita dei Monti heading towards the Villa Medici, and an oasis in Rome appeared. First the road itself; built on a high hill (uh Rome? Duh seven hills) and running a ridge it offers almost unprecedented vistas of Rome all the way to St. Peter's.

Along the way there was yet another ancient basin of stone turned into a fountain, though it was slight lopsided.

View of Rome and the Vatican City from viale Trinita dei Monti

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Trinita dei Monti

Trinita dei Monti

This baroque church really reminded me of the Spanish Missions in the southwestern United States. Well, other than the ancient Roman funeral stele used as part of the balustrade and the whopping great Egyptian obelisk out front.

Interestingly this church and the surrounding park (which includes the Villa Medici, now the French Institute in Rome) belongs to the French state. Sort of like an embassy. Reminds me of when I was a kid in Syria and I would be on "American soil" or in America when I was at the American snack bar or library, but in France when I went to visit my parents friends, on Argentinian soil with by school friend Pilar when I was at her house, on United Arab Emirates soil when I stopped for sticky sugary tea with Rani after school or even in Pakistan when I went to hang with my friend Prashant at their embassy compound where we would watch Rambo movies and pretend to be at war...that I think was a little too previous...

For everyone's iechyd moving on. The Villa Medici is not that intersting from the roadside, the parkside is another matter. I don't know if one can get into the gardens, but I suppose that is for another time. It may collapse on itself, but Rome is always going to be there, 2700 years and going strong. The Energizer Bunny of all cities.

Villa Medici, the French Institute in Rome

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Spanish Steps

Boat fountain by Bernini's pater

Spanish Steps

Just to the north of the Piazza Mignanelli is the actual Piazza di Spagna with the Spanish Steps, another of Bernini’s fantastically baroque fountains (but wait! Apparently it was carved by his father, Well I do declare! It is shaped like a boat, sort of…in a way…if you look at it from the right angle at least, so I have always referred to it as the boat fountain, I suppose other people do as well). Later I was reading about it and there is an urban legend that, during a rather sever flood, a boat floated up here and Pope whichever the some number in Roman numerals had a fountain built here to commemorate the receding of the flood waters. I have no opinion on that; might be, might not be...I just like it!

Here we are though, the Spanish Steps. A hundred years in the making, this was built to connect the Bourbon church of Trinita dei Monti on the hill with the Spanish Bourbon palace below. The architect created an incredible spacial composition that includes not just the undulating stairs, but the houses on either side which frame the view.

I think we we were accosted six times on the way up by people selling cheap plastic camera tripods, wooden choochoo trains and fake plastic Louis Vuitton handbags...do I look like I need a fake plastic Louis Vuitton handbag?

Luckily we were there for the giant Nativity scene (to be posted with the other Nativity scenes from all over Italy).

Trinita dei Monti, from half way up the Spanish Steps. The brown building
is the backdrop for the life-size nativity scene

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Hyperion, Keats-Shelley House

Keats-Shelley House, Spanish Steps, Rome

This post skips ahead, but only by a few minutes, it was however on my mind today with recent events at the university hospital (nothing bad, just events!). 

The Piazza Mignanelli opens into the Piazza di Spagna with the so-called boat fountain and the Spanish Steps.

Attached to the Spanish Steps is the Keats-Shelley House with it's strange history of a couple of brief tenants.

The Keats-Shelly house was built at the same time as the Spanish steps (1723-25) and is located on the south side. It was here that the poet John Keats would die of tuberculosis in 1821 at the ripe old age of 25. He requested to be buried under an unmarked grave with the words: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” Which was done (he’s over in the protestant cemetery) because the romantic poets were ever so dramatic.

I had to stand here, in a place I have stood many times before, (ok, like three or four times before) in the days when Keats and Shelley were just obnoxious things to check off a reading list, and recite to myself one poem by Keats (or at least a little bit of it).

Out of the miniature red leather bound book of Keats poems that was given to me at school by Sister MacLeod; Hyperion was a favorite of mine.

Shelley comes later in our Italian tour and will be posted when we hit the ruins of the forum (...My name is Ozymandias, king of kings...you get it. If not Google it!). In fact Ozymandias kept coming up, baths of Trajan, Herculaneum, Pompeii...it was hard to run into a point where it was not relevant. Towards the end I think my travelling companion was going to hit me over the head if I even started to stare remotely over a landscape and say under my breath: "My Name is Ozymandias, king of kings...."

Here is Hyperion by John Keats, spelling is correct, just British (so you can stop yelling at me for my extra "u"s and "re"s instead of "er"s.

Hyperion, John Keats

Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?
Am I to leave this haven of my rest,
This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,
This calm luxuriance of blissful light,
These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,
Of all my lucent empire? It is left
Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.
The blaze, the splendor, and the symmetry,
I cannot see – but darkness, death and darkness.
Even here, into my centre of repose,
The shady visions come to domineer,
Insult, and blind, and stifle up my pomp. –
Fall! – No, by Tellus and her briny robes!
Over the fiery frontier of my realms
I will advance a terrible right arm
Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,
And bid old Saturn take his throne again.

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Piazza Mignanelli

Column dell'Immacolatta

Past the Triton Fountain the road name changes to the via Sistina.

Diverging off the straight line by taking the street opposite the metro station. This would be to the left or east of the Via Sistina. Walk down the Via del Tritone until you come to the small piazza where the Via Dell Due Macelli, Via del Traforo and the Via del Tritone meet. Turn right onto the Via dell Due Macelli and walk north by north west. (note Interesting traffic tunnel to the south of this intersection.). Also note that towards the tunnel is the Albert pub, as I keep mentioning...

"Piazza Mignanelli: Eventually one will come to the beginning of the Piazza di Spagna, where there is a great big 19th century looking column thing with a big ol’ saint on top."

Okay, so I wrote that last sentence before we left. I found out while traveling that the colimn was set up in 1857, however the shaft is ancient and came from an unknown temple nearby.

Known as the Column dell'Immacolatta it has a lovely bronze of the Virgin Mary on the top and (as you can see in the pictures) on December 8 of every year the Pope, with the help of the Roman Municipal Fire Brigade, places a wreath around the statues neck...or in this case the arm. 

Column dell'Immacolatta, Piazza Mignanelli, entrance to Piazza di Spagna

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Palazzo Barberini

Palazzo Barberini

Built in the mid 17th century and currently housing the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, the Palazzo Barberini impresses one from the street , and I am sure the collection of paintings impresses from the inside.

However we were on a mission, and our mission would soon be accomplished. I did have to stop for a moment and gape open mouthed like some sort of moonshine laden hillbilly because of the fence. Which in and of itself is a work of art.

Judge for yourselves...

Palazzo Barberini Fence

Rome - December 28, 2011 - San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane

San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane

San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane: Built by Borromini in the middle of the 17th century wedged into a corner.

Complex curves and planes meet classical columns in an almost whimsical building with a hint of madness…gosh I love good architecture.

It is sad that, possibly from whatever in his mind inspired that whimsy, the architect committed suicide and was not buried in the little chapel here as he originally intended.

Inn the picture to the left you can actually see the fountain of Juno, and understand how these fountains interact with the buildings around them.

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Quattro Fontane

Diana Fountain

Juno Fountain

River Tiber Fountain

Just a couple of minutes northwest of the Piazza Viminale the road becomes the Via delle Quattro Fontane and soon one arrives at the Quattro Fontane.

The Quattro Fontane (“four fountains”) is a group of four fountains, (no really) set into the obliquely set into the walls of the buildings at the four corners of the intersection of Via Delle Quattro Fontane and Via del Quirinale.

Completed between 1588 (the year of the battle of Gravelines! Yay for the English!) and 1593. The fountains represent the goddesses Juno (jealous and vengeful wife of Jupiter), Diana, (goddess of the hunt, often associated with night, also jealous and vengeful), the river Tiber as an anthropomorphic personification and the river Arno also as an anthropomorphic personification. For some reason Juno and the Tiber are depicted chilaxin under some strange octopus-like trees that hang down in thick dreadlocked tendrils to the languid figures below.

River Arno Fountain