Day 10- June 9

From the perspective of an art history nerd, this may have been our most exciting day yet. If you're not interested in statues, skip half this blog. In the morning we went to the super intense Galleria Borghese Museo, which is also apparently super exclusive because you have to preorder your tickets and they're only good for two hours. At first I was thinking, "Two hours for all this priceless art? Preposterous! They have no way to check on that." But then I realized that they only let people in in groups every two hours and the tickets are for a specific time. So, from 9 to 11 we did our best to see everything. Who knew admiring things could be so oddly stressful? It is also noteworthy that for some reason, the Italian government thinks that an appropriate public bus is one the size of the proverbial 'short buses that elementary schools use when they only have 3 kids on one route.

Although many deaths, either by suffocation, bus door, or frustrated Italian, almost happened, we all arrived safely at Borghese. We had some specific targets, although the entire thing is simply spectacular. There are fantastic gardens out front, and it is another one of those old villa/castle things that is a piece of art in itself, and one of those museums that you only find in Europe where there isn't just art chilling around on display, but art literally everywhere, all over the walls and ceilings and floors. Anyway, our specific targets were, of course, Caravaggio and Bernini (no museum in this country seems to have escaped Caravaggio). The Caravaggio of interest was "Davido con la testa di Golia," "David With the Head of Goliath." This is a noteworth painting for two reasons. 1) Caravaggio painted himself as the head of Goliath. 2) The head of Goliath is one of the most gruesomely realistic things oil ever put on canvas. Seriously. We all stared at it with our mouths just kind of open for... for way too long. You know how the other day I said something really pretentious like "I find that early Caravaggios lack his characteristic flair for emotion"? This painting has it. To the max. The painting is also very interesting in relation to some stuff we've been talking about in class. I've enjoyed the parallels we've drawn from David and Goliath to Judith and Holofernes, and this David was posed a lot like a Judith and Holofernes. (Speaking of which, I told Sister Terri I would look up the 'Judith Slaying Holofernes' by the one famous female painter of the time, Artemisia Gentileschi. It's in Firenze, and shows heavy Caravaggio influence as well as heavy not being a fan of men, a big theme of Gentileschi's work.)
Also, I find the habit of painters to place themselvs as an evil character very interesting. This habit seemed to dominate Rennaissance and Baroque, which made me think as I was giving my presentation today on Biblical art of the catacombs (more on that below) that it might have something to do with the concept of Catholic guilt growing stronger and stronger through time. What I mean by this is that in early Christianity, when the followers were highly persecuted slaves and poor citizens, religious teaching and art seemed to be focused on the promise of the afterlife, which makes sense. As Chritians grew in power and did a 180 to become the most wealthy and in control people in Europe, more religious teaching and art seems to have been about the troubles of Earth, and the sin and repetance that must happen before Heaven. Even a depiction of Christ suffering was unheard of in early Christianity, yet by the 1500 and 1600's, we have painters so fascinated by the bloody and sinful aspects of Church history, and perhaps so preoccupied with their own sin, that they paint themselves as evil giants, or even Judas (as did Jacopo Bassano, whose Ultima Cena we saw, an unusual depcition of all the disciples at the last supper arguing and chaotic, with just one, thought to be both Judas and Bassano, looking out at the viewer).

(The Caravaggio. I guess you have to get up close and personal to really see how nightmareish this is. But just take my word for it. Every line in that face is Lord Sauron-level evil.)

(The Gentileschi I looked up.)

(Bassano'sUltima Cena).
The Berninis at Borghese are all of his most famous works that aren't out in the city somewhere. I don't know how this one Museo got them all, but Dear Lord Baby Jesus. From room to room to room, visitors are relentlessly barraged by a series of statues so incredible that I would believe you if you told me that all Bernini actually did was turn Medusa on people in action. There was Roto di Prosperina, "Rape of Prosperina," Bernini's depiction of Pluto (Roman God of the Underworld) kidnapping Prosperina (Spring) to be his wife. 'Rape' in the title refers simply to kidnapping (apparently it's a word that has changed meanings). The mastery of this statue is... indescribable. How marble could possibly be a medium where Bernini could show the impact of Pluto's grasping fingers pinching her skin together and tugging at it is absolutely beyond me. I won't even begin on the realism of their expressions or hair. Or the fact that the veins and muscles are consistently realistic, detailed, and go all the way from head to foot without sticking out obnoxiously like he tried. Just look at this.

(Seriously. The knuckles. The hand veins. The contours. This looks like a black and white photo.)

After that blew our minds to the point where all you could hear from the whole group was "Oh my God. That's crazy," there was the obnoxiously titled Enea che fugga alalle fiamme di Troia salvando il padre Anchise e il figlio Ascanio, which is simply "Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius" when you look it up in English. Anyway, it's a scultpture of Aeneas, the founder of Roma and son of Venus, carrying his father and leading his son away from the wreckage of Troy, after the infamous Trojan horse incident. Aeneas was the soldier who shepherded the refugees of Troy all the way to Italy to found a new country, and also the grand-something of Romulus and Remus. This statue has a LOT to express. There is the anguish of all as their city falls to ruins, yet there is also the set bravery of Aeneas and the hope for the future in the child, yet also the decrepit defeat of the old man. The three generations (this is purely my extrapolation) seem to represent the old that is failing, the present that is fighting, and the future that will succeed, in a time of turbulence. It's fairly legit. There was also a really cool painting of the same scene that we found by a guy named Borocci.

(Oh, that thing they're holding is their household gods, laers.)

THEN there was Bernini's 'David,' which, as we all know, gets majorly eclipsed by Michelangelo's 'David,' and I'm not totally sure why. They are both ridiculously impressive, though obviously they approached the subject different ways. I think Michelangelo's is more grandiose, but the thing that really makes a statue worthy of the admiration of the ages to me is the detail, like the veins I was gushing about, and both Davids have it. The last statue (I promise!) was Bernini's Apollo e Dafne. This statue is about the mth where Apollo thinks he's more bro than Eros, god of love, so Eros shows him who's bro by shooting Apollo and the wood nymph Daphne with his arrows of love. However, he shoots a golden arrow into Apollo, so Apollo falls in love, and a lead arrow into Daphne, so she does not reciprocate. Apollo chases after Daphne with perhaps not the best intentions and she cries out for help to her father, another god, who saves her by turning her into a laurel tree. Bernini Medusa'ed the exact moment when Daphne began becoming a tree. And this is actually ny favorite. It has all the raw emotional power of the Rape of Prosperina, but at the same time, her hair is growing into leaves and her fingernails into twigs.

Although, as I said, everything in the Museo is incredible and most of our group wandered around like idiots for our two hours saying only variations of "Wow" and "This is unbelievable," there was one more really awesome thing I'd like to highlight. The ceiling of one gallery, and I couldn't find out who painted it, was this wonderful Christian/pagan fusion scene of a Mt. Olympus/Heaven. (I know Mt. Olympus is Greek but I don't know the proper equivalent.) The whole Roman pantheon was there, even Hercules lounging on his lion, but Jupiter was crowned with stars and posed suspiciously like the classic Christian God up in heaven on a cloud looking down. Juno next to him, Queen of Heaven, oddly resembled Mary, and Apollo had a glowing halo around his head very appropriate either for the sun god or, ya know, Jesus. To top it off, flitting about the edges were figures that could either have been Christian cherubim or pagan Cupid. I wish I had a picture, but I promise you, it was a bomb enough ceiling that my neck kinda hurts.

After ALL this excitement, we had a hurried break for lunch, where I figured out that the price difference between a panini and a soft sandwhich, tramezzini, with exaclty the same thing is 3 euro, and then we had to get to our next stop because it closed at noon. I am going to have a very hard time adequately describing the sheer intensity of our next stop. We went to Catacombe di Priscilla. Our first catacombe stop (squeee!)! I didn't know quite what to expect. The Priscilla catacombs, under the old villa of a very wealthy Roman woman, are called the "Queen of Catacombs," a fitting name for several reasons. Of all 7 Christian catacombs in the city, Priscilla has the best preserved frescoes hands-down. Also, these catacombs grew to be grander than many, with large tombs for the wealthy that could even hold sarcophagi, and several really important people were buried there (the bones have almost all been removed now), like popes and martyrs, ya know. No big deal. By the way, there are both catacombe and necropoli around Roma, and they are different things. A short explanation is that a necropolis is a 'city of the dead,' which consists mostly of large tombs the size of small rooms, while a catacomb is an underground cemetary, with the majority of the bodies lying flat in dug out graves in the wall called loculi. Also, they are both underground now, but the catacombs were built that way and the necropli were on the city surface when they were built in ancient times. Also also, catacombs don't exist only in Roma, and they weren't only used by Christians, either, but for the purposes of our class we are interested in Roman Christian ones, obviously.

So our tour guide to the catacombs was... the most fitting catacomb guide ever. We rushed in just as they were closing and Sister Terri and Dominica, supported by all of our puppy dog eyes and angelic stances, managed to sweet talk the tiniest, most adorbale nun ever into letting us in. Seriously, this woman was barely up to my shoulder. So we get our tickets and turn around to file into the door down to the catacombs. They don't let anyone through without a guide, because it's really easy and pants-wettingly terrifying to get lost down there. Anyway, we file through the door without seeing anyone and turn around and then OH, MY GOD, THERE'S OUR GUIDE. Where did he come from? He's this little (unfortunately not as little as the Sister, but pretty darn little) olive-complexioned Italian who isn't very old but still insists on having matted gray hair and one of those craggy faces that seems to be lined deep with the burdens of... the nighttime moanings of catacomb ghosts, we assume. To top off the creepy mad monk image (he wasn't even a monk, but that's so what he was), the man (yeah, he never told us his name, most likely because he is a catacomb ghost) had on full long pants and a hoodie, to which he did keep the hood up the whole tour. There were also some random lawn charis around, and he was complaining that our tour was running into his reposa (I did feel really bad about that!), so he most definitely sleeps down there. We've officially decided. He sleeps down there cuddled in a tomb with Priscilla, eats his brown bag lunch chatting with Pope Celestine (or is he Pope Celestine?!?), and has his 5 AM coffee with Jesus with the Jesus in the frescoes. He is heretofore referred to as 'Ghost Guide.'

But about the catacombs, in all seriousness. They are truly incredible. Even with the bones removed for preservation now (almost all of them, because Ghost Guide seriously relished putting his flashlight under his chin and saying that there were still bodies in the sealed tombs right behind me), the sense of walking through the place that held the carefully sealed and loved and missed remains of basically an entire culture is chilling and overwhelming. One thing that really hit me was how many child loculi there are. The whole world had a high infant mortality rate from the 2nd to 5th century, but the early Christians especially (with some exception, and pre-Constantine, the catacombs stayed in use for a little after that) were the persecuted poor and the slaves, and, as we saw in some remains under churches our first week, they lived in apalling conditions. On a similar note, even the adult graves are alarmingly short, which I feel like is one of those things that isn't some kind of human evolution over 2,000 years but just a nutrition issue that the ancients had.

And then the frescoes. The biblical scenes and symbols in the catacombs are one of the best ways archaeologists have to learn about the largely illiterate, highly persecuted, and highly propaganda-ed about early Christians. The reason it is so intense to see these frescoes is because you realize you are looking at a main way that Christians taught what they believed. You are looking at the origins of Christianity when you look at those frescoes. Also, artistically, I find them quite stunning- the colors are fantastic and it's fun to watch style develop. There were lots of really amazing frescoes in Priscilla that took my breath away. Biblical scenes of the catacombs was my pre-trip research project, and the symbols I studied were EVERYWHERE, so we talked about that for a while and I got to show off, which is always nice (to summarize: adaption of symbols and drawing parallels from paganism and the Old Testament, particularly Jonah or Moses to Jesus, and focusing on the rewards of heaven were the important themes). The coolest fresco by far was one that is the oldest Madonna and Child we know of, which dates to the 2nd century. Aside from Madonna and Child, the best frescoes were in cubicula, the larger rooms that housed sarcophagi of the wealthy (in contrast to the loculi) and were once covered with frescoes. Gatherings to worship and make offerings even happened in these rooms- we were in one with an altar that is still used to this day. It became a fun yet frustrating game of trying to recreate the original appearance in my head, like the Coliseo.\

Aside from that creeping feeling of living history, the reason I call the catacombs 'intense' is the creeping feeling of... dead-ness. Whether or not there are still bodies around, I really struggle with myself about whether it is apropriate to wander through such a place rubbernecking like a... well, a tourist. In Roma there seems to be an odd combination of truly venerating the dead and kind of not caring. That may sound odd, but the thing is that Italians do such thigns as rubberneck at catacombs all the time- we haven't yet stepped into a church without stepping over marked tombs in the floor. They certainly respect the dead, but it's a different kind of respect, I suppose. It's not the removed respect I think most Americans grew up with, if that makes any sense. I'm just glad I gave up the childhood superstition of having to hold your breath as you pass a graveyard. Or I wouldn't be allowed to breathe in Roma at all.

After this visit, we had class sessions drawing Biblical connections to what we'd been touring, and learning about flowery Medieval love poems (next to "you are more beautiful than heaven," pretty much every American V-day of dinner and chocolate looks pretty lame). Then some of us set out to explore the city on our own, make pasta, make friends, and see piazzas at night. A productive and educational day in many senses of the word.

Day 9- June 8

Remeber the other day when we became celebrities and it was really awesome? Well, we were just kidding about that being awesome, because today we became super celebrities. Through the awesome networking of Loyola and Sister Terri (and, in a way, Loyola Literacy Center patron and former U.S. Ambassador Lindy Boggs), we got ourselves a lil' ol' appointment with Miguel Diaz, the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. Ambassador Diaz is the face of U.S. diplomatic relations with Il Vaticano. After a harrowing security checkpoint, we entered the absolutely gorgeous embassy, which overlooks the Forum and has a garden with flourishing citrus trees. We got to meet both Ambassador Diaz and his Public Affairs officer, Nathan Bland (home state Louisiana holla). They told us about some really cool stuff they've been doing, like focusing on initiatives revolving around successful interfaith communication on key global issues and protecting the right to religious freedom across the world. The embassy, with a staff of only 19, has put on three pretty snazzy conferences in the past year: one on preventing the transmission of HIV/AIDS from mother to child, one on interfaith communication, and one on human trafficking. Ambassador Diaz told us about these projects, himself, and how stuff works around an embassy. He seemed a little shy of really getting into a discussion about how the U.S. and the Vatican agree or disagree on various policy matters. I, for one, was of course curious as soon as he mentioned in passing that they discuss environmental issues among other things, things which we all know that the Vatican and Ambassador Diaz (a conservative and former Catholic Theology professor) absolutely do not agree on with the current U.S. administration. But based on the way in which Ambassador Diaz fielded (read: sketchballed) some of my peers' questions about his actual activity in diplomatic relations, I decided it wouldn't be kosher to pursue that point. However, all in all, the visit was lovely and everyone was very personable and kind, down to the AK-47'ed up security guards who came over to chat and take pictures with us. Ambassador Diaz certainly has an impressive personal resume (a LOT of languages, and a trailblazer as one of few Hispanic ambassadors, among other things) and a serious passion for his job. If anyone's curious, you can see us being super-celebrities here on the highly trafficked U.S. Embassy to the Holy See Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=755175092&closeTheater=1#!/media/set/?set=a.215664151790368.56609.155357921154325). Oh, and fun fact: the U.S. has only had an official diplomatic relationship with the Vatican since the 1980's.

After this, and a lunch in which Kylee and I became Lady and the Tramp, and viciously thieved some bread, we all headed down to Doria Pamphilj Gallery, which is an amazing museum in an amazing old palace. Some of the family actually still lives there! And when I say amazing, I mean that you walk around this museum with your head craned at the ceiling like it's the Sistine chapel. There was fantabulous art everywhere. I guess that's something you could get used to in Italia, but it might take a while. We saw everything from a ceiling of the 12 labours of Hercules to a room of paintings on the ever-mysterious Mary Magdalene (nothing, by the way, in literally any religious narrative, Bible, apocyphal, or other says that Mary was ever a prostitute, as you've probably heard, but more on that below). There was also a room of some pretty BAMF statues and sarcophagi and such that once had the roof collapse in on it. A statue of a centaur in the middle, which had broken into 25 pieces, is now one of the most successful art restorations in the world. Also, I discovered a little-known 1400s Renaissance painter, Bernardo Parentino, with whom I have become quite taken. Here is his Temptation of St. Anthony Abbot, the delightfully chilling and bizarelly modernist painting that caught my eye in a room of golden frills and Rennaissance poses and lighting.

But I digress from the reason we went to the gallery, which was to see two more Caravaggios, which the lovely Kristin again taught us about. They were earlier Caravaggios, a "Riposo durante la fuga in Egitto,"  "Rest on the Flight into Egypt," from the Gospel of Matthew story that the Holy Family had to flee the scourge of Herod soon after Jesus' birth (a story whose deeply symbolic, and thus suspiciously unrealistic, nature of paralleling Jesus to Moses we discussed), and a "Maddalena Penitente," "Mary the Penitent," a portrait of Mary Magdalene, the repenting prostitute pop culture version of her. Interestingly, Caravaggio's penitant Mary sits in exactly the same pose as Mary Mother of God in "Rest on the Flight to Egypt," except of course Mary Magdalene is not holding a baby, but instead has perfume and jewlery scattered on the floor around her that apparently marks her as a donna della notte. From an artistic standpoint, I don't enjoy these early Caravaggios as much, because he hadn't yet settled into his characteristic flair for the dramatic and ability to convey seething raw emotion, as we saw the other day in "Crucifixion of St. Peter" and "Conversion of St. Paul." However, the two painting were extremely interesting discussion pieces and fit right into our class. We discussed the many rumours and misconceptions surrounding Mary Magdalene, and I have come out of class for now under the opinion that someone who didn't like women very much tried very hard to discredit her as Christianity formed. The "penitent prostitute" image seems to have been entirely made up to discredit her, while on the other hand there are some stories of her being instrumental in forming the early Church after the ascension of Jesus, traveling to France and evangelizing hundreds before retreating into a very holy life of hermitage and prayer, finally ascending to Heaven as a saint. We discussed how there was a strong conception of women as unreliable people and poor witnesses in Roman times, which makes it very interesting that someone tried so hard to make Mary into a prostitute, because she really only shows up in the Gospels at the very end, as a key witness to both the placing of Jesus in a tomb and the risen Jesus. So somebody at one point clearly thought she was a pretty darn good witness, and somebody else really didn't agree. Also, Sister Terri touched on the wonderful world of "Mary and Jesus sitting in a tree" rumours, explaining that in the apocryphal gospel of James, Jesus is said to have kissed Mary on the lips, which is most often read by scholars as a symbolic description of passing on wisdom.

Anyway, after all that, and a bit more time exploring the gallery, which really was just fantastic (and I don't think I ever knew it was there), we split up to educate ourselves in a different way by getting out there in Roma. Kylee and I set out to begin crossing things off of our obnoxiously long list of important sites. We hit two: the Church of San Ignacio, our fearless Jesuit leader, and Piazza Navona in the daytime. I could fangirl for years about the Church of San Ignacio, but this is already a really long blog. Suffice it to say that it is one of the most stunningly decorated things I have ever seen, and I'll never understand why it isn't more well known. We enjoyed trying to break down the artwork, picking out stories of Ignatius, the four Cardinal virtues, and some other fun stuff like that. Also, it just about made our lives to see the billboard at the front of the church that said in both Italiano and English: "Welcome! You are in a Jesuit community. More information?" Oh, the adorableness of the Jesuits. Anyway, we also greatly enjoyed Piazza Navona, of course. Although Bernini's famous Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi with it's epic and expressive figures and rich symbolism and general air of "you will never accomplish anything this incredible" is a fantastic sight, the real reason that I perosnally am so taken with Piazza Navona is because the atmosphere of the massive artist's market with the ever-persistent street dancers and sellers reminds me of Jackson Square back home in New Orleans. Little bits of character like that are the same in all the world's major cities, because it's just the same delicious, noisy, crowded, big mess that comes together when you gather people from all over the world and tell them to carve out a niche in a place that already breathes history on it's own.

The last noteworthy occurence of today was that my lovely roommate Kristin got one of the coveted appointments to Scavi St. Peter's, the excavations of the necropolis under the Basilica that contain the possible bones of St. Peter, as well as the bodies of many popes, including the wonderful Boniface VIII, who has been so admired in our Saints, Poets, and Popes course. Kristin was extremely moved by the chance to see this sacred and historied space, and was absolutely adorably gushing for at least an hour on her return. I am extremely jealous, and I hope my repeated emails pay off soon so I can follow in her footsteps. Lastly, Kristin gave me pasta, because she is a wonderful human being.

Day 8- June 7

This morning was a rainy day in every sense of the word. We were supposed to go and have class in Il Foro Romano, but the wild tempest kept us in. Instead, we had a very informative Christian Origins/New Testament Lit class here in our collegio, in a bizarelly lit room that put everybody to sleep until the magical broken vending machine that dispenses both coffee and extra change made everything better! (But seriously. The existence of a coffee vending machine means 24/7 caffeine. The existence of a magical BROKEN coffee vending machine means more money for more caffeine.)

Anyway, the class heretofore referred to as Sister Terri's Biggest Loser Roma Challenge has been getting, like, totes ridic crazy interesting. First of all, who knew I'd ever know so much about sarcophagi, or that sarcophagi say so much? I will never forget my feeling of "I can't do this class" and my fervent prayers to Dear Lord Baby Jesus, Allah, Bishnu, Buddha, the FSM, and whoever else may be listening to help me out on our class under the Church of San Lorenzo when the older and wiser Classical Studies majors of our trip walked right up to a sarcophagus and said "Hey, Sister, check out this early 4th century sarcophagus." But I will definitely be able to do that before this month is out!

But second, and more important, things were really different two and three and more thousand years ago (seriously, who knew). For example, the earliest Jews weren't monotheistic. Yahweh, who eventually became the one true God, had a wife and a consort. Today, it is clear that someone tried very hard to suppress knowledge of his wife, Asherah, in particular, and I find this extremely fascinating, especially since she managed to survive anyway, through the transferrence of her stock image as Queen of Heaven into that of the Christian Mary. Also, we've obviously been talking a lot about, well, early Christian origins, and a lot of the stuff we learned at first wasn't exactly breaking news- the early Christians adapted a lot of pagan stock images into their religious art to assimilate the people (Hermes becoming Jesus or Endymion becoming Jonah), and a lot of symbols, rhetorical devices, themes, and ideas of the Bible and other religious writings are clear attempts to adapt pre-existing pagan culture and make metaphors to help followers understand (for instance, the parable of the midnight visitor in the Gospel of Luke, and the common way of explaining how Christ mediates between man and God, draw heavily on the Roman custom of patron/client relations). However, I didn't know how much interesting information is hiding in the New Testament, and the apocryphal gospels (speaking of which, I didn't know that the most clearly metaphor-heavy, "let's-have-storytime-but-I-might-be-making-cool-stuff-up-because-nobody-corroborates-me" gospel, the Gospel of John, almost didn't make it into the modern Bible). For instance, we've been going over in detail all the nuances and disagreements over accounts of some really important events like the death of Peter, conversion of Paul, and identity of Mary Magdalene. I would now say "Who knew that Christians could disagree with each other so much," but that's probably a bad joke.

Anyway, after class, some of us opted out of the Forum in the drizzle (remember that this is an hour's walk across the city) and instead explored the city and markets nearer the Collegio a little and caught up on our work a bit. I had a wonderful adventure when I returned my hipster self with my hipster sketchbook and my hipster Medieval poems to the hipster gardens above Piazza del Popolo (seriously, though, those gardens are gorgeous- all the more so because the plants and layout are native and natural). I kindled a brief yet deep and beautiful new friendship with a man named Alessandro, a friendship from which I gained two roses and a bracelet for good luck. The good luck seemed to work soon after I got it, as I really needed Alessandro to go away so I could finish my Medieval poetry.

After this lovely diversion, I returned to the Collegio and learned more about some good ol' Franciscan angst, self-loathing, prison, and how to condemn a Pope to Hell in the snarkiest way possible. The life skills I am stacking up on on this trip are becoming overwhelming.

After this, I had one of the most fun nights I've had on this entire trip. By fortuitous coincidence, a dear friend of mine and Kylee's, the illustrious Giuseppi Voss, who also goes to Loyola with us is in Europe with his family right now. He was in Roma tonight on his way to Paris, and will be back in Roma to paint the town with us from the 11th to 15th. Tonight I met up with him for the best dinner of my life at the most fantastic pizzeria in all of Roma. Maybe it's just because I was literally starving to death when we got there, but seriously. Next time you find yourself in Roma, faithful reader, go to Forno on Via Candia, sort of around the corner from Musei Vaticani, and thank me later. By buying me pizza and a fruit tart from Forno. Because who are we kidding, food really is the reason we come to Italia.

Day 7- June 6

Today, we became highly priveleged archaeologists. We once again made the trek all the way across town to the old part of the city to see Il Coliseo. Our tour guide, Antonello, was a real live grown-up archaeologist and he had keys to let us behind gates with huge padlocks, to go both higher up and lower down than anyone else can go. Oh, those hapless tourists, gazing longingly after us as Antonello hurriedly locked the gates... how nice it is not to be one of them.

With Antonello, we learned all about the history of the Coliseo. The Emperor Vespasian started building it in 70 AD, and it was actually called the Flavian Ampitheater for a really long time- the word "Coliseum" comes from a statue that used to be outside it called the Colossus of Nero. (Guess what that was? A really small statue of Emperor Augustus). The Coliseo was used, as we all know, for gladiatoral games, where gladiators (usually slaves) would be pitted to fight against one another or against large (and usually starved and angry) animals like lions, tigers, and bears- oh my! One of the padlocked gates we crossed brought us under what used to be the floor, to the barracks of the gladiators and the animals. Antonello showed us the elevator lift system that was used to bring the animals up from under the floor through trapdoors (a process that took 16 slaves), so that the gladiators would always be surprised by the animal they were facing. Another really awesome thing we learned about was that the Coliseo was also used to reenact naval battles, and we got to see the rooms underneath where the boats were kept and the system connected to the aqueducts that would fill the Coliseo with water. It was a crazy elaborate system with a canal connecting the Coliseo to an artificial lake. As if we weren't impressed enough with Roman engineers, we also learned that almost none of the Coliseo is held together with cement. At all. That's why it has so many arches- the Romans were very confident (clearly with reason) in their super sturdy arch system. The natural pressure of the formation and the 'keystone' of the arch, coupled with bars that held stones together through drilled holes, is pretty much all that's held the Coliseo together for 2,000 years. This is what mankind can accomplish without TV and internet.

The Coliseo held 80,000 spectators, by the way. And the reason that it's in the ruin-y state it's in is only earthquakes and stone theives. In general, the thing has held up pretty well, although it used to be covered in marble and have a wall all around it. It looks so different today that I spent most of my time trying to recreate the original in my head, which is very difficult. From the top of it, as high as it is still safe to go, the view of the old city is amazing (two Medieval belltowers!!). We looked out over the forum, the spot where the Colossus of Nero was, and the remnants of the great temple of Venus and Roma. Speaking of the Colossus of Nero, it's an interesting example of how artistic symbols evolved through time, somethign we've been talking about a lot. After Nero's reign, everybody realized he was kind of a terrible emperor, so they adapted the statue into Helios, the sun god, and later replaced the head several times with other emperors. Even into Medieval times as the statue kept standing, even though it was pagan, it was thought of as a symbol of Roma's endurance. Il Coliseo is a fascinating example of the integration of early Christianity into paganism. After Constantine made Rome Christian, the original use of the Coliseo was discontinued, debatably because many slaves killed there had been Christians. Throughout the Middle Ages, the building was variously a church, quarry, castle, and monastery. Finally, in hte 1700s, proper excavations and preservations started, because the Catholic church declared it a sacred site of martyrs (historical evidence for the truth of this is scant and controversial). Today, it is both a tourist attraction and religious site. The Pope still does Stations of the Cross around the Coliseo every Good Friday.

After a break for lunch in which Kylee fangirled her Filipino heart out over a fresh coconut fountain, we went to the Pantheon. To summarize the Pantheon, it was a pagan temple converted to a Christian church. In my opinion, it has one of the most beautiful interiors of any building in the city, although I really, really wish I could know more about what kind of art was there before the Christians moved in. The rich colors and patterns, however, are still fascinating. The Pantheon as a Catholic church is a church specifically honoring martyrs, so the main attractions are statues and paintings of some of them, along with rich people's tombs (including one Vittorio Emmanuel II, responsible for the prettiest montrous white obscenity in the city). However, the coolest thing is the tomb of Raffaello Sanzio (the Raphael, of the ninja turtles and priceless art and all). His famous epitaph, "Ille hic est Raffael, timuit quo sospite vinci, rerum magna parens et moriente mori," or "Here lies Raffael, by whom Nature feard to be conquered while he lived, and when he was dying, feared Herself to die," is, in my opinion, quite a fitting tribute to the beauty of his art, and all great art, really.

Thus concluded the strictly educational portion of the day.

Notable Quotables

- "The Vatican police can't do anything if you get to Italy, so you should have run across the border holding up the Host going, 'NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA.' " - Sister Terri, on Carlyn's near escape from her voodoo being discovered by Vatican security.

-Full story on that minor occurence I keep mentioning. The lovely Carlyn is not Catholic (probably why she refused that guy for his offer of a date inside the Basilica), but decided to go experience mass in the Vatican, probably because she thought she might get a ride in the Popemobile. For someone in Carlyn's situation in America, the proper thing to do when processing up to communion is cross your arms to indicate that you will not receive the Eucharist but would like a blessing from the priest. Well, Italian priests don't seem to understand that, and they really, really want to give Carlyn the Eucharist, and they really, really don't speak enough English to sort this out, and there's really, really a room exploding with people waiting to get the Eucharist. So Carlyn said "grazie" and took the Eucharist, as polite, confused, and non-voodoo-y as could be, but walked away without eating it, since she's not supposed to. But then the Jesus Po-Po came and shut down her following-religious-rules-party. After being yelled and flapped at in rapid Italian for a long enough time, Carlyn went ahead and ate the ba-Jesus out of that Eucharist. Afterwards, Sister Terri explained that the Vatican police have ot be on the lookout for devil worshippers, magicians, etc. who try to take the host to perform black magic on it (I'm trying to google how often this happens, but no success so far). Then she made the above suggestion for how Carlyn should have dealt with this display of Vativan open-mindedness.

- "Oh, but no." -Carlyn, at everything that deserves it.

- "I just had to talk to Jesus." -Carlyn, when eating, on fleeing security, or after her blog fails to post.

- "Look! I found Jesus!" -Kathryn, on seeing a cross in the Coliseo

- "It's so old, guys! But seriously." -Antonia, on the Coliseo

- ""I think Johnny Depp is the CUTEST thing." - Sister Terri "You mean, besides me." - Dr. Sebastian

- "Once we get past the cupola, you can strip down." - Sister Terri, on Il Vaticano dress code

- "It gets hot as hell but then I have to put my pants on." -Dr. Sebastian, on convertible pants.

- "I got kicked out of Buddig." -Jeff. "Dude, I forgot about that!" -Chris. "I came right back. There was a welcome party." -Jeff

- "Hey guys! I was just wondering if y'all were done with the kitchen because Antonia and I wanted to OOH COOKIES." - Kylee

- "Hey guys, have you seen ... ?" -Antonia, maintaining friendships across dorm floors without a celll phone.

- "This is famous. Take a picture. I don't remember what the $#&% it's called though." - American at Vittorio Emmanuel, maybe, MAYBE, better for our image than the one walking around in a skirt and belly shirt.

- ""If my water bottle filters holy water, is it still holy? Or is my water bottle lying to me when it says it keeps everything out?" - Dr. Sebastian

Day 6- June 5

Finally, the beginnings of our exploration of Il Vaticano!! Today, we did what might just be the best overall thing to be done in Roma: climb the cupola, dome, of San Pietro- 320 steps. We felt really awesome about it until we saw this woman who did it with a baby.  It was like when you feel so proud for knowing something in class, like how to identify the three types of columns, and you think you're really on the ball. And then a Classical Studies major who shall not be named knows how to identify the centuries of sarcophagi and mosaics on sight. Nothing like that happened on this trip, ever. Anyway, more things happened that I could crack jokes about, but most of what I remember and really need to say is ROMA E BELLA, BELLA, BELLA, ROME IS SO BEAUTIFUL AND I SAW THE WHOOOOOLE THING. The 360 degree view of the city from the top of the cupola, especially being out in the fresh air after walking crooked up the dome, is the most refreshing experience in the world. And I know I've been accused of being "the most superlative person in the world," but it is seriously, literally, and indubitably the most refreshing experience in the world. In a previous blog (I don't know which because I don't know what day anything is anymore. Is this real life?) I mentioned how Roma gives a pedestrian utter culture shock every time you turn the block from something like Il Vaticano to something like Castel Sant'Angelo, but seeing the whole beautiful city and all its layers laid out beneath you is shocking, breathtaking, and refreshing. Refreshing in so many ways, the biggest of which being that with all this variety, Roma is not grey. (This is the same reason that I love my home in New Orleans- most parts of her, at least.) Seeing the city in her patchwork of beautiful and natural colors from all eras really drove home the significance of her patchwork of history and cultures.

Very few things in the world are worth the line that Il Vaticano has, or the rigorous covering of knees and ankles in this heat, but is undoubtedly one. After seeing the top and drinking it in, we held class at the overlook platform which is beneath the highest part of the dome. Here the lovely Allison taught us about the three types of columns (we observed corinthian before us), and we learned the legends of the crucifixion and discovery of the body of St. Peter. Although St. Peter's death is not in the Bible beyond vague references in the Gospel of John which seem to be mostly metaphorical ("when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and take you where you do not want to go"), the popular story is that he was crucified by Nero shortly after the infamous fire. As we learned the other day under San Lorenzo, the fire was started in the poor quarters of the town where the people, mostly Christians at that point, lived in unbelievably crowded quarters and often had fire problems. Although the hazardous situation of the insula, the tiny apartments, was common knowledge, Nero used the opportunity to blame the fire on the Christians, leading to Peter's crucifixion three months later. Traditionally, Peter has been said to have been crucified upside down because he did not feel worthy of dying the same way as Christ, and buried in the necropolis under the Basilica of St. Peter (which was built later). It has alaso been said that to take Peter down from the cross, the Romans simply cut off his feet rather than take the nails out. Then, in the 50's, an excavation under the Basilica found bones, sans feet, wrapped in purple. It is highly questionable whether they are really the bones of St. Peter, especially since another supposed tomb labeled 'Simon' was found in Jerusalem, and rumour of Peter's bones has cropped in many places, even England. Also, although they were wrapped in purple, the bones did not seem to be in any place of honor. However, I think the whole story is fascinating and it's nice how the idea that the first Pope's bones might be under the Basilica, especially coupled with a story of his heroic martyrdom, seems to really rally and inspire the Catholics who gather at San Pietro from around the world.

After discussing all of this, examining the gargantuan statues atop San Pietro (including St. John the Baptist holding a bazooka), and taking some very original pictures of ourselves as the Muses on a set of 9 stairs (what is that set of stairs doing there and where does it go, no archaeological excavation has yet answered), we went down to the Basilica, temporarily leaving behind Dr. Sebastian on a different elevator (I wanted to take the stairs back down but there didn't seem to be any). Down on the floor of St. Peter's, everything is bright and beautiful. I won't fall back into excessive gushing. This is an amazing building. We saw more bodies of incorruptibles, holy people whose bodies haven't decayed even if they died a really long time ago, which we saw the other day in Beata Anna Maria Taigi in Crisogono, but I only had time to barely mention because I was so excited about The Feminist Church. One incorruptible, whose name I did not brave the crowd to see, was dressed like Santa Claus. I thought this was noteworthy. And of course, we went to look at the remains of recently beatified Pope John Paul II, who had the biggest crowd in the entire church.

Anyway, there is priceless art of talent beyond belief all over this building, even in the random paintings and metalwork stuck in corners, but Michelangelo's Pieta gets a big shout out. Pieta is a general term for a statue depicting Mary holding the body of Jesus just after he was taken down from the cross. Michelangelo's is certainly not the only one, I wouldn't even venture to say the 'best,' but I think the reason she is the most famous is because she is so full of raw emotion in a way that one would think impossible for a marble statue. Every inch of the stone is carved to convey the crushing and overwhelming mix of grief, passion, piety, and prayer that Mary feels looking at her crucified son. Even the limp body of Christ in this statue is able to project a mixture of anguish and peace at once. I have always loved this statue and everything about her. She is the first thing that is going to un-lazy me enough to put a picture in this blog.

It's not a picture that any of us took, because it's hard to get a good one these days, since she is the only display in the main basilica protected behind glass. This has sadly been true since 1972 when a guy named Laszlo Toth decided (1) that he was Jesus and (2) that Jesus didn't like the Pieta very much. He attacked her with a hammer and tha damage has been restored as well as can be, but it hurts to know that her nose is actually a graft from her back and not an original.

Another art shout out that must be said is, of course, Bernini's altar and baldacchino, canopy. They are both very golden and heaven-like and very fitting to the atmosphere.

After these adventures, some of our group attended mass, where Carlyn was accused of trying to perform voodoo of the Eucharist.

After Sister Terri averted that disaster with threats of mocking Vatican security, and a very exciting escapade at our local fruttateria that Allison and I shared, we held our second Saints, Poets, and Popes class. I have a whole separate blog/journal dedicated to that class, which won't make as much sense to those who aren't in it, but I will say here that I am enjoying it greatly and becoming very excited to see how the course progresses. Being a longtime fan of English classes, I would not have been happy to have left Rome without studying some ltierature as we are. I will end today with the suggestion that if anyone wakes up with a hankering for Medieval Franciscan angst, they should check out Jacopone da Todi, because he is both adorable and descriptive in a fire-and-brimstone Old Testament style. Also, important life lesson, don't live as a Catholic under the reign of Pope Boniface VIII. Just don't do it. He was really chummy with Dante, however, so that's cute...

SINGLE BEST QUOTATION EVER

"I'm on the edge of glory." - Poorly Dancing White Girl (Bau-Bau Dance)