I walked into an open door marked Free Entry only because Google wanted me to fly over a stone wall and walk down an invisible road. Military museum, I deduced from the submarine, humongous anchor, and half a dozen young men in camo. I turned right to the first room, just to be polite, and I realized I’d just stumbled across the motherload. Multiple cases with dozens of ornate presentation boxes, some with the documents, some with flags, all with identifying placards.  Thanks to a friendly young military man I learned they were commemorative boxes for ships lost in combat. A poster said there’s a downloadable app with guides to the collection in English, but it wouldn’t work for me or the helpful young man. No worries, I’ll tackle it with Google Chrome later.
But let’s talk about the boxes! From the extremely ornate to the sleek, different in size and material. There were six glass cases with three levels of shelves and large base cabinets. Helpful signs with images of all the boxes on display in the cabinet. This was what I searched for in the Vatican, hoping, wrongly, they’d have a deep collection of reliquaries.
This was an unexpected gift, wrapped up and delivered to me. Took some quick photos.

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I’ll return to photograph and sketch some of them more carefully. By the way, this museum is the cleanest environment I’ve seen in the city; dusted, mopped, fresh smelling and not one single piece of trash in sight, no so much as a gum wrapper, nothing. Just to say.
Feeling jubilant, and rearranging my travel schedule in my head, I sauntered into the Capitoline museum. I didn’t remember much from my visit back in 2004 – just an impression of musty rooms, the twins suckling the she-wolf, the copy of Marcus Aurelius on his horse, and the colossal bronze fragments of Constantino. Boy, does my memory suck, or there’s been a vast improvement. I’ll start with the iPad guide. It gets full marks for ease of use, and a good balance of entertainment and education. The well-spaced exhibits are attractively presented in a way that makes visual sense. I enjoyed this golden Heracles, and this surprisingly modern-looking fresco of the madonna.

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I visited the temporary exhibit on Da Vinci’s research of flight. There were screens with the contents translated for the English language visitor. I confess, I’m more enamored with the artist that the scientist, so I was charmed by this red chalk face in the midst of his Codex writings on flight. I think it might be a self-portrait. I quickly realized the Capitoline would repay multiple visits. More fun. I ate a reasonably edible museum restaurant meal on the terrace, worth is just for the view. I wolfed down mozzarella and prosciutto and figured out I will have more than enough to examine here or at the Barberini until I get on the plane. I briefly regretted I did not get here sooner, but if I had almost everything else would have been an anticlimax, so two weeks is perfect.

I didn’t leave until late, physically worn out from the long day, but happy happy happy.
Charmed life.

 

Stopped in Bar La Licata Via dei Serpenti, 165, en route to a day dedicated to covering every room in the Capitoline. Nice cappuccino and I scooped up a panino in case I decided to picnic in a courtyard. I arrived in a great mood only to find a line. Yeesh. A tour group of students were sitting in a row on the steps and drawing in sketchbooks. It lightened my heart. It makes me happy to know that no matter how blinded by hormones and ravaged by the need to be cool, this day they will look carefully look and what they see will get in under the radar. Art is like that. Hand-eye, that goes deeper than language.I waited in line, grateful I had an audio Terry Pratchett novel for company. After I got my ticket and ipad guide I moved to the next line to go through the single security point. There were two massive student groups ahead of me and a gaggle of elderly tourists, who seemed confused about how to place a shoulder bag on a conveyer belt. I gnashed my teeth just a little bit. Luck of the draw. It was starting to get hot, in the seventies, and I could feel my nose pinking up. Other northern tourists were starting to fry, their pale upper arms turning the color of boiled crustaceans. I may be leaving Rome with farmer’s tan.
Got through into the first courtyard about 45 minutes after I arrived. Never was I so grateful for all the strategizing I do to minimize the time I stand in line. I started with the painting galleries, and here are only a few of its wonders. The only red-haired John the Baptist I’ve ever seen.
This Rape of Europa is not the first version of the myth I’ve seen, but definitely boasts the most seductive bull. Check out what he’s doing with his tongue.

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But what really got under my skin were the rows of faces underneath the obligatory intimidating and braggadocio scenes on the walls of the Hall of Horatii and Curiatii. 

That band underneath the main paintings is a series of faces like these. They are called grotesques and possibly copied from older Roman villas.

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Drew a postcard featuring two of these, and I am still wondering about the reason for depicting desperate, baffled looking women and depraved male demons. If there’s an art historian out there who has a clue, please, fill me in.
A few hours later I moved to the underground corridor, reading with interest with the grave markers I’d been introduced to by the incomparable Mary Beard series. This one for a five-year-old girl choked me up.I made my way to the remains of the underground temple, and the marvelous view of the forum. Almost no one is there, I saw six other intrepid people in an hour, and it was marvelously cool. Word to wise, if you are coming here in the heat of summer, this is an excellent refuge.

I walked slowly through two floors of sculpture and was worn to a nub by the time I left. I haven’t felt this physically whipped since the first week. I may have overdone it today. I’ll be back to do half as much, in twice the time.
Back at the hotel I collapsed on the balcony and watched a sliver of a moon rise over the rooftops. 

This is why I make the effort to keep up the blog. When I re-read the entries, they rouse my memories and the more detail I include, the more vividly it all comes back.

Slept until past 8 after staying up past midnight….again. I have fallen into the habit of ‘one more chapter.’ No idea how I kept my eyes open after my long day, but somehow I did. My hips ached and even my feet hurt from yesterday, my neck had a crick in it. I could use a low key, do nothing day. But how do you turn your back on the banquet that is Rome?

Here’s how I did it – I lingered in bed with a mug of tea and sized photos for the blog I was a week behind on, did some internet housekeeping, and made a short video of the view from my balcony. From here Rome looks like a 2000-year-old game of Tetris.

Time flew by.  It was after 11 before I took a shower, got dressed, and toted my laundry down to the local laundromat. Five euros less than the guys in Prati.
My daughter sent me a WhatsApp text letting me know I’d inadvertently pocket-dialed her, and that she heard me saying “Life is great.”  I am so tickled that that’s the kind of thing I’m caught saying. On that tangent; it would please me greatly if my progeny followed my example when they are in their sixties, stay curious about whatever interests them in the wide world and go exploring. Just putting it out there!
I got another WhatsApp from my spouse, about the 1-85 bridge collapse from a fire. Miraculously, no injuries. I briefly wondered just how gridlocked Atlanta is. Then I thought how blessedly, completely unconnected from the news I’ve been. For this tender mercy, I thank the compassionate God of my understanding.
I walked to lunch at Trattoria Valentino and looked very carefully but there was no sign on the street to indicate the name of the establishment, yet they never lack for clientele. If I had any Italian, I’d ask about that. Instead, I just bask in their welcome. This time I managed to communicate that I’d like something with red sauce and he indicated it was not on the chalk menu but he would make it for me. By golly, he did. Pancetta and tomatoes are all I could identify, but it was delicious. His pasta hits the sweet spot of al dente for me, between limp and stiff as a bundle of twigs. Yeah, that’s happened a couple of times. I read a novel on my Kindle app, and drew a few postcards.
My route back to the hotel detoured by Fatamorgana. Sososo good. I peered in windows and saw this Banksy rip-off on a mug. Mugged. Heh.

I ambled back to the hotel, finished my drawing of MB’s Adam leaving Eden, the serpent offering the apple.Meandered back to pick up my laundry. Bought a very nice taupe gray belt from the quiet, patient man who’d made it. Check out this wall of buckles.Finished the excellent  A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran and am hoping to pull the plug and go to sleep by at 10pm

Tomorrow, the Barbarini and a tour of the private apartments.

A particularly lovely day. Could it be because I got to sleep before midnight for the first time in a week? Nah.
Off at 9 with a hand-drawn map to a coffee bar (the word Cafeteria affixed to a bar I’ve decided is a good indicator). They made me an excellent cappuccino, gave no hipster ‘tude, and I walked away with gorgeous fresh pastry.
Looked for the Post Office but it was not where Google said it would be. Ah well. Just before I turned into the gates of the Barberini museum complex, I saw what looked like a woodland on the rooftop of the building across the street, including a row of cedar trees. Bought my ticket and then inquired about the once a month, Saturday morning tour of the Principessa’s apartments.
She seemed concerned that it was in Italian, I shrugged, concerned only with viewing the art and said, “I’m an artist. I can just use my eyes.”  She reprinted my ticket for the sum for a tour and general admission and told me this ticket was good for ten days admission. A lagniappe of generosity for a good-hearted Italian lady. Picked up the audio guide in return for $ and my drivers license. A driver’s license has worked for ransom in every situation where I’ve been asked to leave my passport, FYI.
Bounded back outside and up the marble stairs to la Fornarina’s room. I was in front of the painting by 9am.
Then time stopped. I made one start on a sketch that I quickly abandoned. The next went better. I kept trying to get the curve of her cheek and the length of her nose and the shape of her lips exactly right. I worked as much with the eraser as the pencil,
but lord, I was happy. She’s my Love, Actually, in person. In my imagination, she redeemed Raphael, that womanizing, ambitious, good-looking, wildly successful climber from Urbino, with his polished manners and an eye to his own advancement. A man jealous of his position at court and competitive and manipulative enough to try to get Michelangelo fired. This is not the guy you fall for, hoping for happy ever after.

She isn’t a classic, cool beauty, or a sweet, vapid virgin, or a petulant, spoiled heiress. Raphael doesn’t just paint her likeness, he paints what she is to him, and such is his skill that he makes us, the viewers, see it too.  She is mischief and charm and lush, tender flesh and dark, limpid eyes. She is his heart walking around outside his body.
I decided I should check the time so I’d know how much longer before I should put my pencil away for the 11 tour, and it was 10:57. Two hours gone, just like that.
I galloped back down to the entry. It was just me, and an older Italian couple. There was much unlocking of doors and walking down corridors. The family rooms weren’t large, nor the ceilings high, but every inch was painted in a loose way, reminiscent of painted frescos from excavated villas.This room had a repeating motif of painted mirrors, which seemed odd. Each room that led into the next had it’s own decorative scheme. The blue room was a favoriteWhat I’ll remember best was the room paneled in paintings of American Indians in canoes on the river and camping alongside the banks,  naked except for feather adornments of a plume-like nature. These marvelous images were based on the drawings of daily life in North Carolina more than four hundred years ago by colonist and artist John White, “In 1585 White had been commissioned to “draw to life” the inhabitants of the New World and their surroundings…They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England’s first settlers.” As faded and damaged as these murals are, they are a unique record, and the only one of its kind in Rome.

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Three more glimpses for you: a sofa mirror combo that’s weirdly fabulous, a room lined with paintings of Colonna’s military exploits. In case you forgot the pedigree and bloodlines of your host, and this wee carriage; Hitch up the goat honey, junior’s going for a ride.

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I’d had no breakfast, and now it was 1:50 and I was starving. I had listened to exactly one item on the audio guide. Next visit I am going to save la Fornarina for last. I started walking towards La Matriciana, but I had the presence of mind to check the hours and it was closed for lunch on Saturday’s. Dang.
Went to Valentino’s and indulged a hankering for vegetables with a Caprese salad, grilled finocchio with Parmesan, and bresaola. More than I could finish, so they kindly wrapped up the bresaola to go for me. Stopped to buy apples, dried fruit, nuts and a box of After Eight mints. The staff of hotel life, baby.
Listening to The Lost Continent – no one is better company than Terry Pratchett.
Weather forecasts thunderstorms on Sunday, when I wanted to go to the big flea market. I may stay with Barberini. But, whups, the first Sunday was free entrance to museums day. That plus rain =  massive crowds.

Sunday, April 2. Rained Out
I nipped out in the rain for a cappuccino and cornetto and spent the rest of the day lounging around, catching up on this blog, and reading. Time well spent.

Tomorrow, RomeWalks audio tour.

It was a good day for a walk while listening to Anya Shetterly’s excellent RomeWalks on my iPod. I took a taxi to Campo di  Fiori, walked in a few circles until I was oriented with GoogleMaps, then followed Anya as confidently as a child holding her mother’s hand. It’s a mix of history enlivened with anecdotes and illustrated by visible architectural details of the surrounding palazzos, piazzas, churches, shops and streets.
These are some highlights of the three hours I spent following this walk off the touristic route.
On a street that was a hive of restoration activity and construction workers, I passed an open door and glimpsed paint cans, rollers, drop clothes. Home Depot in a garage. Then I spotted the rack of bespoke artists’ brushes. I now own three. 

Passing the Spanish National Church of Santiago and Montserrat I opened the door to the sound of the organ. Not interrupting a mass, it was someone practicing. The Borgia popes were buried here after their successor kicked their unwelcome bones to the curb. Lesson: a life of sin, debauchery, licentiousness, and corruption gets you this lovely eternal resting place. Well played, Borgias, well played.

As I was exiting, I saw this curious painting. I know most of the usual iconography, but this man using his robe for a sail? New to me.

The walk led me to a small church designed by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino for the Guild of Goldsmiths. The design was Raphael’s delicate riff on the Vatican’s St Peters basilica, on a much smaller scale of course. I was charmed by the cupola. This was the commission that added architect to Raphael’s resumé. How wealthy was Rome that a guild of artisans could afford to hire Raphael to build them a church? As a member of the Georgia Goldsmith’s Guild, I approve of my brother artisans choice.

This was one of those times graffiti made me sad and a little angry. I get that traffic tunnels and industrial walls are fair game, but do they have to piss all over Raphael? 

A little further along, a pair of columns topped with bare-breasted falcons was the kind of curious detail Ms Shetterly points out that I would otherwise not have seen.    

Next door, a church festooned with skulls and bones, which makes me think of Terry Pratchett’s character, DEATH.The tour pointed out bars still remaining from the renaissance era, when that building was a notorious prison.And this marvelous iron gate that seemed impossibly graceful and delicate. Many more fascinating streets later, I paused for lunch at Roscioli’s. I wanted another serving of that delicious bean, scallop and bacon soup I’d had my first week in Rome, and still remembered with pleasure.  Just to say, 26 euros for a bowl of soup, a small bottle of water, and an espresso seemed a little stiff.
As a solo diner, I was seated at the bar and by chance next to a young man from Venezuela. Over the course of our meals he told me he’d moved to Miami with family, become a citizen last year, and worked in an upscale Nantucket restaurant. He’s been on a food pilgrimage in Italy,  eating and working his way around the country. He did a few months in Puglia with a Michelin Star chef and offered to work for a baker for free to learn how to make their sourdough. A week after he started, they gave him a job. He was leaving for home the next day and his next job, in Nantucket at Ventuno. While we talked, I ate my bowl of soup and could barely waddle away. He polished off an amuse-bouche of warm goat cheese and pickled eggplant, three stuffed fried zucchini flowers, a heaping bowl of Amatriciana pasta, a small hill of bread, and a bottle of wine. All of it. No clue where he put it.  He shared that he was a marathon runner, which I guess balances out being a professional eater. Lovely guy. I wished him well.
When I left, checking my Googlemaps for my next route, the cold, brutal truth dawned. My internet was kaput. Google translate was DOA, Safari was blank, Uber inaccessible. I could use my downloaded map, but no directions for walking.I knew this day would come back when I signed on for a month of access, but dang.
By guess and by golly I made my way to via Cestari, the street of shops that provides clothes and accessories to the professional religious, priests to popes. I looked in about five shop windows and realized there was nothing I wanted or needed. Priest stuff was shockingly expensive, except for the shirts that are rigged for the collars. I passed a post office box and mailed a big batch of my little sketches on postcards. Time to chuck in the tea towel. No calling Uber, so I found my way to the foot of the Capitoline where I knew there was a legit Taxi stand. collapsed into a cab and headed back to my hotel for help adding another week’s worth of internet access.  Here’s a tip – if your bladder is full with soup and a bottle of sparkling water,  a taxi ride over cobblestone streets is like to kill you. Pee first.
The infinitely kind and patient ladies at the desk in 15 Keys translated the Vodaphone text messages. I need to give them 15 Euros to ‘top up the card’. It must be done either at a tobacconist or a Vodaphone store. I opted for the store at the Termini train station – probably a good idea since I’ll be meeting my Context Tour there on Thursday. It was not pleasant. Heaving with people, too many people with hard eyes, and tourists pulled wheeled bags. It looked weirdly like an American mall with shops lining the arcade. Vodaphone clerks cackled at the note I asked the hotel girls to write up for me. They took my 15 euros and to my question of when would it be back online, said ‘five minutes, madam, five minutes.’  I fled back to the hotel. Figured I’d lie down and when I woke up, the world would be spinning gently on its connected internet axis again. Foolish me.

Italy bitch-slapped me today. I never saw it coming. If you want to skip the rant that follows, skip down to pulled up my socks and walked on.
Now, I was not shocked that Vodaphone was playing with a loaded dice – like, you owe 15 euros but payments can only be made increments of 10 euros and 20euros aaaand down the rabbit hole I went. It was some solace that one of the hotel’s dear obliging desk clerks has also been screwed over by Vodaphone and despises them too. Lost time, lost patience, lost trust. Whatever. You have an internet provider, at some point you get bitten in the ass. I’ve had more expensive lunches. It’s the principle.
Now, the men at the TIM store in Trastevere, who said only one plan was available for 49 euros, gave me a receipt but no contract, and the chip is used up a week later? That was outright thievery. Thus my move to Vodaphone store, flanked by two Italian friends who walked me through the purchase of this chip, which was great and it worked out well, until it didn’t. Sadly, it set me up for this last round bit of chicanery. But I don’t blame Italy for this, this is a pain felt worldwide.
No, what is breaking my heart a little are the two tobacconist stores, your source in Italy for public transportation ticket, stamps, Vodaphone payments (ha), mints and cigarettes. Directed there to purchase stamps, and when asked for postcard stamps, using English, GoogleTranslate and holding up a postcard to illustrate clearly what I required, sold me stamps that turn out to be invalid in the Italian postal system.
They are not only overpriced, not a shocker, they belong to a different, private system.
It would just be money I wish I hadn’t spent if I hadn’t, in good faith, put postcards into three different public post office boxes, the kind on the wall on the street with two slots, one for Italy, one for everywhere else.
I would never have known if I hadn’t spotted an open Post Office door today and gone in to mail a postcard and buy more stamps. The post office clerk tossed my card back to me and said, “no good.” Another customer who spoke excellent English interpreted for me and that’s how I found out I might as well have dumped them in the Tiber. He was as shocked as I was.
I mailed some cards from the Vatican – which has its own postal system –  and those have arrived.
I have some of the other ‘stamps’ left and the PO clerk said to go back to the tobacconist and ask where to mail them. Too little, too late. So I bought ten legit stamps, pulled up my socks and walked on.
I bought some shoes. Few purchases are more guaranteed to lift the spirits.  I loved these shoes when I first saw them. It was a good sign that four weeks later I still thought they were delectable. Well-made, sturdy and cushioned for walking, supple and a gorgeous color. They were men’s shoes, which like to kill the Italian man who waited on me. He hastened to tell me they were for men. When I said it didn’t matter to me, I could see he was dying to ask if I was aware I was female.
I bought a cheap pink scarf in a street market. Because cheap and pink; win-win! There was a blue scarf with an interesting, subtle geometric pattern I really liked but not for – gasp – 149 euros. It was made by Ferrari. For that kind of dough I want at least a hubcap. Maybe the knob on the top of the shifter.
I went back to the Barberini and loved it. Will probably go a few times more. Drew Judith Slaying Holofernes – just what I was in the mood for after the post office and Vodaphone chip debacles. I drew in my sketchbook, so take that you lying, cheating tobacconists. At one point I was startled by several camera flashes. Turned out an art class on a field trip had been watching me sketch and asked if they could take some more photos of me for ‘homework’. Um, sure. I was finished, but I faked it for them.  I moved on to another room with a sleeping cherub. Drawing that peacefully slumbering putto that helped to calm me down.By then it was 2:30 and I walked La Matriciana for a late lunch of scallops, which were the best I’d had in a long time, and an artichoke, roman-style.

Back at the hotel,  I read a pleasant obliging email from the Context tour company, asking if they could take photos while I’m on my Tivoli trip and use them on their social media. If so, please sign and return the attached release. I read it, and no. Hell no. Here are the points that really chapped me and that I called out in my reply which follows,
Sorry, but definitely no. Mainly because of the provisions – the irrevocable and unrestricted right –  and – and any other purpose – but especially – and to alter and composite the same without restriction and without my inspection or approval.
I might have considered limited use with my approval, but not this. I asked them to just tell me to stay clear of the shots and I will happily comply.
Tomorrow is another day. And hey, if bad things come in threes, I’m done. I have four churches I want to visit that are on the other side of town. My plan is to rise and shine early, spend some time in holy places with heartrendingly glorious art, and then buy some of that wicked good chocolate from Quetzalcoatl.

I decided to connect a few liturgical art dots, walking from church to church. My first stop was St Agostino. I came for the famous Caravaggios, I stayed for Monica. St Augustine’s mamma didn’t kneel as she fervently prayed for her son’s  conversion, she stretched flat out on the floor of the nave She was all in. Though his bones are interred elsewhere, she is buried here. Little do my children know how often I thought of Monica, stretched out on the cold stones of the church floor leaking tears. She seemed like a kindred spirit, one who would understand what it was like to be under fire deep in the trenches of motherhood, praying for courage, strength, and patience.

There was a sculpture of Madonna who has been elected to handle infertility issues. Witness those pinned offerings of it’s a boy/it’s a girl ribbons, testaments to answered prayers. Blatant tokens of maternal victory, or expressions of gratitude?  My brain thinks they are cheesy but my heart approves.
I’ve learned on this visit to Rome that it’s not just the church, it’s the chapel that stops me in my tracks and that I’ll remember. I’d visited S Maria della Pace before and never noticed the masterful frescoes of Adam and Eve, before and after Eden, in the arch above.

Nor these figures, reclining on sarcophagi supported by sphinxes. I give you  Mr and Mrs Eternal Rest.

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I found the Sant’Agnese in Agone church but the marble sculpture I was seeking by Bernini was nowhere to be found. I wonder if they are not connected, the sculpture and the church. Piazza Navonna is much like I remember, bustling with hustlers and the ghost of weddings past, with passersby calling out ‘Auguri!’ to the perambulating newlyweds.
I’d chosen another RomeWalks, and found myself in the Sant’Antonio dei Portoghesi. They went a little crazy with the marble, which makes perfect visual sense to me after my journey to Lisbon two years ago. Being in the pews you’re surrounded above and below and from every point of the compass with visual splendor. Sometimes every sense is engaged; the cool even temperature, traces of incense steeped in the wood and marble, recording of liturgical music, or, like the other day, organ practice. Is not only visually rich, there’s an emotional impact. The feeling I have in those moments is how Holly Golightly describes being in Tiffanys. “It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there…”
I’ll say again that I love Anya Shetterly’s wise, informed, and cultured commentary and her egoless decision to let a professional do the interstitial parts of the audio. Yes, it’s old and you’ll have to hunt it down on the internet, but it will be worth it.

This unprepossessing facade is the church that housed the order of clergy who took it upon themselves to pray for the souls of the condemned on their way to the scaffold. When an execution was scheduled, they’d put a sign up outside this very door that promised a plenary indulgence for everyone who prayed for the soon to be departed soul.
Here’s another tip for the visitor; never eat in a place where you think, huh – cute. Good food does not do cute in Rome. They do barely visible virtually anonymous, and blend in. Let that be a lesson to me. Lured in by that adorable artichoke tree outside, I had a memorably bad meal at this place. Greasy, mushy, flavorless. Do your homework, and don’t get distracted by cute. I haven’t had a bad meal at places recommended by bloggers Katie Parla and Elisabeth Minnchilli

Took the long way back to the hotel, just to see what I could see. The variety of uniforms never fails to impress.

Very tempted to enter this shop and empty out my wallet.

I’ll save any hardcore shopping for my last few days. I was beat by the time I limped into the hotel. Any day I go over five miles, I feel it. I took it easy, and started drawing more postcards to send. That’s the good that came out of my stamp mishap. I was inspired to draw all evening long. Nothing wrong with that. I did four versions of La Fornarina because I adore her, and then I branched out. Those will be correctly stamped and mailed. I wish I had a record of which ones were trashed, but I really have not a clue. Maybe someone in the Italian postal service will notice them, have a heart and stuff them in the right boxes.

 

 

Awesome, excellent, marvelous, best ever day!
DarkSky app warned me of an 80% chance of rain, starting at 10am. I wasn’t thrilled with the forecast but figured Context Tours had experience with how to tailor an outdoor tour so I wouldn’t drown. I packed an extra pair of socks, my umbrella, and a positive attitude.  Scampered up to Termini at 8:15 (no less crowded, dirty and scary to me) to meet my fellow touristas, a couple my age from Berkeley, Ms Barberini the tour leader, and Aniek, an intrepid 19-year-old intern from Holland, in front of the Nike Store. We hopped into a Mercedes van and glided down the road to our first stop, Hadrian’s Villa.
Between Modern Scholar audio lectures, Wikipedia, and Mary Beard, I had brushed up on Hadrian.
He was considered one of the five good emperors. On the plus side of the ledger, he was an administrator par excellence, and fervid builder (he rebuilt the Pantheon).  Our docent explained how Hadrian, who came not from Rome but from Spain, worked diligently to lose his foreign accent so he would not be mocked. Our man had something to prove. Architecture on a grand scale was just the ticket. On the minus side, and it’s a very grim mark, he hated the resistance of the Jews to Roman rule, specifically to worshiping Roman gods, and did everything he could to annihilate them. The fact he was a besotted lover so grief-stricken after his lover Antinius died (drowned in mysterious circumstances in the Nile), that he not only named cities after him, he deified his lost boy and had many sculptures made of him. It would be all romance on a grand scale, if he hadn’t been 48 and Antinius 13 when the boy became his favorite, as the museum placards like to say. There’s that pesky issue of consent. But I digress.

The name Hadrian’s Villa is misleading. This was no country home, this was a town, run by an army of workers and slaves, using a warren of underground passages. Water for multiple bath complexes, a library, fish ponds, groves of olives and oranges trees, reflecting pools, an amphitheater. My favorite, after the library, was Hadrian’s private getaway on a man-made island encircled by a moat and high walls. How big was it? My app says I walked five miles, and by no means covered the entire place. Here’s most of a map recreating how it was laid out.And a model, for those of us who think in 3D.

It had more acreage than Vatican City and served something like the purpose of Versailles. It was Hadrian’s way to get out of dirty, noisy Rome (not much has changed there) and still be able to rule effectively with the wealth and power of Rome on display.  What is left of all these great structures is bits of the picked-over skeleton, the brick and stone that lay beneath the marble-covered walls, mosaic floors, and wood shaded porticos and walkways. It was first abandoned and later scavenged for parts to build other villas, like Villa d’Este. One good reason to see both places is you can squint at the Villa d’Este marble floors and imagine them beneath your feet at Hadrian’s Villa.
I’ve always heard the phrase ‘ruins’ in connection with dilapidated stone structures, but I never felt the truth of it before today. There’s a  difference between something that decays over time, and a place that has been deliberately despoiled. Hadrian’s Villa was pillaged, ravaged by the depredations of men tearing apart the carcass. It may have been in the spirit of recycle, but what it left behind feels ruined.

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I asked inconvenient questions about the running of the place. The model of the grounds showed only the main buildings and pleasure gardens. Where were the kitchen gardens? Where did they stable the horses? How was the livestock fed and sheltered? I am always a little more interested in downstairs than upstairs, with how something like this was sustained as well as built.  This was a town, not a stately home. Sadly, there was not much information. There were segregated baths for the slave/servant population, the warren of underground passages to keep all human machinery out of sight, and an immense building for the slave quarters. A series of modest rooms with mosaiced floors, marking the space for three bed per unit, was considered the likely quarters of his personal guards. Seeing this makes me want to go home and start laying mosaic in my entrance hall. Sorry Robert!

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It was a perfectly gorgeous spring day with birds all atwitter and redbud trees, lilacs and wistera in full flower. Olives in groves just leafing out. Blue skies. A balm to the spirit. So much for DarkSky, though I will say it’s better to be warned for nothing, than not be warned and drenched. I left my umbrella and jacket in the van.
I am so glad I came. Walking around even a small part of the acreage gave me a sense of the vastness of it, a chance to absorb through my senses the scale of a building complex achieved just shy of two thousand years ago. It was a taste of what Rome at the pinnacle of her powers could do. It was also a very pleasant walk in the country. I had almost become inured to the filthiness of the city, until I breathed air that was sweet and pure. I had a strong urge to pack my bags and move to Tivoli. Don’t think I was not tempted.
We had lunch in the insanely charming town of Tivoli, which was the place to go for prophesy back in the day.  The place my Context guide knew was closed but we lucked into a wonderful restaurant on a terance overlooking the hills and valley, the medieval streets and houses clinging to the verdant hills. Our table was beneath an arbor canopy of wisteria in full bloom. Yeah, charmed life. Ms Barberini made a remark that has had me thinking ever since. Someone has asked her if the way Italians use their hands when they speak is reflected in the gesturing in renaissance painting, like the hands of Michelangelo’s Christ of the last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. Huh. I’ll be looking for that for the rest of the week.
Back through the narrow lanes of Tivoli, which were startlingly clean;  oh poor dirty, nasty, trashy Rome and off to Villa d’Este. The rooms were painted in a way that reminded me of Chigi’s Farnesina, as there was a certain Raphael-lite look to the art. I loved this trompe l’oeile of the painter stepping through a door in his doublet and improbably, but perfectly, chained to an ape. But oh, the views, the terraces, the gardens, and the fabulous feats of hydraulic engineering.  The water features were situated in a way that each one came into view fresh. They were revealed as you turned a corner, or walked down a stair, or out onto a terrace. Each one had its moment and the cumulative effect was both powerful and enchanting at the same time.
A Rockette lineup of spitting gargoyles faces, A Sybil sculpture above waterfall  where meals were served. The sound of water falling was so loud I do not doubt guests could have had private conversations.A wall of sculpture, spitting fauns, and pools that overlooked a magnificent vista.

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I’ll end with this little video of the first area of multiple water features, gardens, and yet another version of the wolf suckling the rapacious twins.

Let’s pause and think about this origin story of Rome. Not the benign Kipling-esque Jungle Boy Mowgli spin I’d like to put on it, but the pair of blood soaked feral children.  Like Cain and Able, the murderer was the founder of the tribe. They go on to deceive and slaughter guests to steal their women. Invite every thug on the run to come to them. A long tradition of successfully brutal killers. I guess the surprising thing isn’t that they managed to subdue the known world through conquest, but that they managed to conceive of and enforce the Pax Romana. Centuries of peace, for the price of submission. And art, wonderful, wonderful art, that celebrates their conquests and fornications and spiritual ideals. The engineering is pretty impressive too.
Long day of beauty and history, good food and excellent company. Driving back at 4:30 there is lightening in the distance and the thunder rolls. It didn’t really pour until around 7pm, when I was on my way back to my room from getting a slice of pizza to go. Uploaded photos and considered what to do with my final six days. Think I’ll visit a place Ms Barberini recommended as one of her favorite small museums.

 

 

 

 

Never expected to wake up at a decent hour after a marathon of reading until 3am. I even hung the Do Not Disturb sign on my door, but my eyes popped open at 7:30. I sat in the little lounge/dining area of the hotel, ate my standard breakfast of fruit and yogurt, and pondered where to go.
Usually, the night before I scan my Theory of Everything document, which has every venue on my list. The first section is museums, churches, and monuments/historic sites. The second section lists restaurants and the third is shopping. That pretty much tells you my priorities. This also has the address, website, and days and hour each place is open. This is critical in Italy, land of the eccentric opening/closing times, Lots of churches close from 2-6, and some museums are open Wed-Sun only.
I pick out my top three choices based on proximity, figuring I’ll get to at least two of them. I consider restaurant options in the neighborhood.
This is Italy and the peak times are 1:30-2:30. Most places open around 12:30. If they open earlier than that, you don’t want to eat there. If you get there at 2:30, they may be out of artichokes, the only vegetable in Italy. Ha ha! JK. Don’t order fish before Thursday or after Sunday.
Back to planning, I copy and paste my choices into an email, I add appropriate notes like mail postcards, find ATM, get chocolate.  I can change my mind in the morning about the order, or go in a different direction entirely, but I do better if I have a plan. It’s like having a manuscript to edit. I love putting the travel day puzzle together, but I get lost in possibility and consideration and two hours can go by and I realize I am still in my jammies. Speaking of which, I also put out my clothes the night before, for the same reason.

I decided to go to the Basilica of Santa Maria Del Popolo, to revisit the famous pair of Caravaggio’s; Peter crucified upside down and Saul’s moment of conversion on the road to Damascus. Both showcase virtuoso painting and feature a pair of prominent asses, horse and man.  Caravaggio was a particularly quarrelsome artist, who couldn’t let a real or perceived slight go without a fight, or conceal his contempt for his patrons.

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Going back to my planning procedures, here’s the copy/paste of the church listing from my Theory of Everything:
Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo, Piazza del Popolo 12, near Porta Pinciana, Rome, Latium, 00186 open Mon–Thurs. 7:15.–12:30 & 4–7 , Fri. / Sat. 7:30 – 7 , Sun. 7:30 -1:30 & 4:30–7:30 www.santamariadelpopolo.it Seven chapels, by Pinturicchio, Raphael, Bernini and Caravaggio.
See what I mean about opening days and times?  Just showing up at a church or museum in Rome is a recipe for disappointment. If no one has told you, the Borghese Gallery, one of the finest collections in the city, is ticketed entry only, for exactly two-hour increments, and fully booked a week or more in advance. I actually wish the Vatican (museums, not the basilica) would do this. As it is now, mornings are like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, with herds of tour groups substituting for careening bovines.

My brain, though functional, was still working in slo-mo, because after the taxi dropped me off at the edge of the piazza, I stood in the center of the piazza, perplexed, trying to figure out up from down on my iPhone’s map, when one of the single rose vendor guys stuck one in my face. Startled,  I batted it away and barked an irritable NO! I knew then I was so sleep-deprived that I didn’t have a working filter and I’d have to watch my temper.
There are three churches in this piazza and when I entered what I thought was a likely door, I found myself in the Carabinieri Comando Provinciale Roma. They ushered me out, politely but firmly. They wore beautifully tailored uniforms and they wore them well.
After three failed attempts I found the right door. The Caravaggios were easy to find, I just looked for a clog of tourists in the artery of the aisle. There was a retractable belt stanchion, and young layman letting through as many people as came back out. That actually makes sense to me. I joined the line and, being solo, got pulled to the front when a single person left, since most of the people were families or couples.
I try to approach each church with ‘soft eyes.’ I picked up that phrase from an episode of The Wire series about looking for evidence at the scene of the crime. Don’t stare hard looking for evidence, unfocus your gaze. Look for what isn’t there. I’ll add, look at the margins and edges. That’s how I found the stone dragon, and how, even though I was distracted by Caravaggio, I didn’t miss the Chigi chapel. Thanks, Raphael and Bernini! Clearly, the Chigis knew what heaven ought to look like, from top;to bottom. On the chapel floor, a winged skeleton held up the Chigi family coat of arms. The Latin inscription Mors aD CaeLos (translation From Death to Heaven) and the capital letters, MDCL, were Roman numerals for 1650, the year the floor was laid. There were different artistic takes on skulls and bones everywhere you looked.

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I spent most of the morning there, and paid attention to the edges of the slabs over the tombs beneath the floor. They had a variety of border designs that would translate well to the metal boxes I’m working on.
Next, I walked to a small museum of a single artist, the sculptor Hendrik Christian Anderson, via Pasquale Stanisloa Mancini, 20. Despite two rooms packed with weirdly cheerful figures on a gigantic scale, there was something sad here.

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I was the only soul there for an hour and a half. Four staff members guarded a museum that was well cared for but lonesome, like they threw a party but no one came.  Still, it had the happiest baby sculptures in town.
By then I was tired and hungry. I trudged around looking for a taxi stand, but no luck. I finally walked back to Piazza del Popolo and taxied across the city to the Trattoria Vecchia Roma, looking forward to the relaxed atmosphere and welcome I’d enjoyed with my nephew and his family. The woman, so friendly before, scowled, flapped her hands to wave me away, repeating, “No room, no room.”  I suppose the empty tables were reserved.  Luckily, I knew I was only two blocks away from Panella, via Merulana 54. I took a table outside, ordered bean and shrimp soup, and addressed postcards. A thin broth was set before me with head, feelers, and tail waving hello. I channeled my inner NOLA and plunged in. Not bad, but nothing I’d order again. But their pastries… ahhh. I bought three to go, because they were that freaking scrumptious.

Suddenly I  felt as tired as a bag of cement. Walked back to the hotel and fell immediately asleep. When I woke up, I sized photos for this blog and then walked down via Urbana, picked up a personal pan-sized sausage and broccoli pizza from Trieste and ate that, a lemon curd tart from Panella, and chai tea for my dinner. All in all, an awesome day.

 

 

Close to the Tiber and only a few doors away from the Napoleonic Museum was the address Google had given me for Museum Praz, Via Zanardelli Giuseppe, 1. Open Thurs 2:30-7:30, Fri 2:30-7:30, Sat 9-1:30.

I recognized the marble entry with three doors as soon as I stepped inside. I’d been here before when I was searching for the entrance to the Napoleon Museum and was sent away by a man at a table in a dark room lined with bookshelves. Which door to choose, the lady or the tiger? I picked the middle door. Same guard, same dim room filled with books. “Dove Museum Praz?” I asked. The man held up a finger for me to wait and called someone, then led me through two rooms he had to unlock, put me in a personal sized elevator and tapped the third-floor button. Once again, there were three doors. The far right door opened, a man beckoned and I entered a small vestibule with a view of a long narrow room crammed floor to ceiling with ornate furniture, mirrors, books, sculpture, and paintings.
A bevy of teenagers whispered and watched me. Hmmm. An adult man explained briskly that I must be escorted by a guide, I could take photos without flash, and there will be no time to sketch. A boy stepped up, and the tour commenced.

I’ll pause here for a quick bio. Professore Mario Praz was an Italian-born writer, Anglicist, and collector. Along with two books on interior design, an autobiographical book The House of Life** and An Illustrated history in Interior Design, he also penned The Romantic Agony, a survey of erotic and morbid themes in European literature. Praz theorized that furnishings were tangible artifacts of social history and that the interior of a home was a representational evocation of the individual that resides in the home, reflecting the character or the personality of the occupant. He called his apartment his archive of experiences and the museum of his soul.

What impression did these rooms give me of his soul? An interestingly eccentric man, straddling the thin line between hoarder and collector.  It’s crammed with oddities, from bas-relief miniature portraits made of painted wax and ornate fans, to musical instruments so peculiar you’re not sure which end the sound comes out of.

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He combined Napoleonana and squicky sentimental paintings, like a girl weeping over her dead lapdog.  He had a motif of hot air balloons in his dining room décor. He hung a portrait of a pope over his teenage daughter’s bed. What adolescent girl wouldn’t love that staring down at her at night?
He needle-pointed the upholstery for a sofa with his wife, a pair of swans on a field of butter yellow. Swans mate for life and his marriage ended in divorce after eight years, yet swan iconography is everywhere. Ironic, bitter, or oblivious?
Along with the weirdness there were elegant pieces; large mirrors, chandeliers, inlaid cabinets, English furniture, French bronzes, Russian malachite, Bohemian crystals, German china, landscapes of Italian and European cities, and the portraits of reigning monarchs, from the Bourbons to the Bonaparte family, plus a canopy bed from the Castle of Fontainebleau. It was a quirky assemblage, but that was its chief appeal.

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“It had its spring in the France of Louis XV, its summer in the Empire and its languid autumn in the delicious awkwardness of the Biedermeier,“ Praz said. Awkward yes. Delicious, I’m not so sure. Fun to gawk at, most definitely.
The young man walked me around the first room, and pointed out the most impressively weird acquisitions, like this bust of a woman whose hairstyle dates to when recently imported giraffes were all the rage. Seriously.

Three girls followed us and prompted him sotto voce, correcting his English and nudging him to talk about specific items. By the second room, I’d learned they were college students and this was a project for their English language class. There were maybe 15 of them, and they handed me off to each other, like a fire brigade passing a bucket hand to hand. The Mamma in me came out. They were working so diligently. I asked encouraging questions. Sometimes I helped with a word. I pulled out GoogleTranslate when they got stuck. I inquired about their areas of study. I cheered them on.
The student tour guides are what made this morning shine for me. It reminded me of the time I visited the Louvre on a Wednesday night and art students were stationed in the Denon wing to explain the significance of various works of art. I left thoroughly charmed. I asked the man in charge if they did this every Saturday. “Oh no,” he said, “this was a one-time project, a once in a lifetime experience.” He winked.  I left thoroughly charmed.
Long walk back to the hotel, stopping at various stores I’d earmarked via Google to find souvenirs for my family. Not much shopping luck. Cheesy and cheap or just okay stuff that cost a whack. After dinner, I walked down via Urbana to get some of the Fatamorgana gelato and heard a deep-throated bark overhead. I looked up and saw Cerebus.

Tomorrow, the infamous flea market, Porta Portese.

**Cyril Connolly and Edmund Wilson had opinions about his autobiographical book, The House of Life. Wilson praised Praz’s work as a “masterpiece,” Connolly called it “one of the most boring books I have ever read…it’s unbelievably exhausting…it has a bravura of boredom, an audacity of ennui that makes one hardly believe one’s eyes.”  Jeez, Connolly, tell us how you really feel.