Naples - Fontana dell’Immacoletella

Fontana dell’Immacoletella and Vesuvius. It don't half loom do it?

A thirteen minute walk from San  Fransisco di Paolo is the Castel dell’Ovo (yes the Egg Castle, I’ll explain later). There are a number of interesting things along the way. Including magnificent views of Vesuvius and the Tyrrhenian Sea.  Heading southeast on Via Console Cesanio until you reach the bay you can walk along the bay (past cats feasting on discarded fish) in a southwesterly direction to a semi-circular piazza with a statue of Umberto I commemorating his visit to the city after an outbreak of cholera or plague or a plague of cholera, or was it typhoid? I know that supposedly the Corso Umberto I was built in the 1880’s as a wide street to separate the lower area with the docks (and therefore the disease) and the upper areas of the city. Any bloody excuse for a city improvement project eh? These days it would be a motor bypass right through Stonehenge. Well that was off topic.

About halfway between to the Castel dell'Ovo, at a sharp turn of the esplanade, is the Fontana dell’Immacoletella:  A striking fountain, delightfully whimsical and by Pietro Bernini, the father of the stone whittler that inflicted so much baroque-ness on Rome. Will we ever escape from the omnipresent Bernini’s?According to the guidebook I bought while I was there and a couple of websites, like many of Naples older fountains this one has been moved about a bit. 

It's current location is divine. 

Below is the unn-named piazza with the statue of Umberto I. My back is to the bay of Naples in this picture. Well to be precise my back is to a series of food vans on an excedra that juts out into the bay from teh esplanade, but that seemed like a lot of words just for accuracy. 

Rome - December 28, 2011 - Forum Boarium

Temple of Portunus

Back in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE the forum Boarium was one of the main food markets of Rome. Strangely it was also the site of the first gladiatorial contest in 264 B.C.E. A fight that was arranged a s a funerary gift for some rich tosser. How did they come up with that? I think it went something like this:

Deceased senators son: "Gosh, Dad's dead, what shall we do in his honor? How about we get a bunch of oiled up muscle men in loincloths to fight to the death in a public square?"

Deceased senators son II: "Well he was a senator...don't you think that's a little tame?"

I suppose it beats a couple of white lilies and a sandwich buffet...anyway arriving at the forum we are greeted with two best preserved republican building in Rome.

Built in 7 BCE the temple of Portunus, god of keys, doors and livestock also associated with ports, interesting. This was Portunus' main temple in Rome and is pretty darn fab. Classically Ionic with a perfectly proportioned pediment, the sides have engaged columns. One of the very visible differences between Roman and Greek architecture was that in Greece columns always had a purpose, in Rome they could be used as raised decorations as here. The Maison Carree in Nimes is very similar (though bigger) and in a similar state of preservation. Quite possibly because they were both converted into churches in the middle ages.

The Temple of Hercules Victor is right behind the temple of Portunus is the round temple of Hercules Victor.
20 Corinthian columns surround this delightful building built sometime between 200 and 100 B.C.E. Once upon a time it surmounted by an architrave and probably a low pitched conical roof. There are carved depictions of the temple of Vesta that show what this must have looked like once.

Just south of this petite rotunda is another fountain with a freaking Triton in it. Really? In the 18th centery some plonker, inspired by Bernini,tossed off this sculpture in their garden shed and then plonked it down here next to the river for lack of something better like a McDonald's or a Starbucks.

Temple of Hercules Victor (the back end of the Temple of Portunus is in the background)

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 27, 2011 - Piazza Navona

Sant'Agnese in Agone

Alex by small fountain

Walking back towards the hotel from the Vatican City we ended up at the Piazza Navona. Lucky for us there was a Christmas Market in full swing. The sweet scent of deep fried dough, sugar and cinnamon wafted through the cool evening air. Puppet shows and street performers where out in force and the police not far behind.

YAY Another obelisk! This one sits atop the fluid almost violent fountain of the four rivers by, who who? Bernini of course. The obelisk called Domitian’s obelisk was moved here to top the fountain in the 17th century. It was originally either in or outside the basilica of Maxentius, Sad thing is I don’t know if this is a real one or a fake one (meaning a real Egyptian obelisk or a Roman copy).

Sant'Agnese in Agone and Obelisk

The piazza itself is quite marvelous, being in the shape of the circus of Domitian which stood on this spot back in the day. Obviously not as big as the circs maximus. There is a delightful church , the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, set back on one of the long sides of the piazza. The concave facade and fluid baroque architecture is quite something.

There are two smaller fountains on the north and south side of the big fountain. One was built in the 1500’s with more stupid tritons on the bottom, it was then capped off by another statue by Bernini in the 1650’s. The other fountain had a statue added to it in the 19th century to make the whole piazza a little more balanced. Very Feng Shui.

Piazza Navona, Sant'Agnese in Agone and Christmas Market

Vatican City - December 27, 2011 - St. Peter's

St. Peter's

St. Peter's Nave

Entrance Loggia St. Peters

St. Peter's is known as the seat of the Catholic Church. It is also known for the magnificent dome designed by Michelangelo, but it's history is much much longer than that.

It all started when a shrine was built over the tomb of St. Peter in the 2nd century, then it grew and grew and grew.Sort of like the line to get in, however less then twenty minutes and we were inside.

The length of the nave is 715 feet long, the dome reaches a staggering 448 feet and the piazza enveloped in the sweeping arms of Bernini's arcade can hold thousands of worshipers.

The inside just seems so huge. It's hard to describe so here are the pictures.

Nave of St. Peter's

Dome of St. Peter's

Nave of St. Peter's

"Throne" of St. Peter by Bernini

Baldacchino by Bernini

Statue of St. Peter

Tomb by Benini
Pope Alexander VII

Facade of St. Peter's completed in 1614