Day 4- June 3rd

Today has been a day that kept us all pleasantly and sweatily busy. Class began at 9 with some art/founding of Rome history in Piazza del Popolo. The most important lesson we learned here was that a street cellist who keeps right on celloing when when confronted with a random woman going commando is the best street performer in history. Oh, wait, how would we know the woman wasn't wearing underwear? Obviously she removed her pants and threw them in the fountain in order to properly enjoy the cello. Also, we learned that even the horror of public nudity does not induce il polizia italiana to run on something better than Ora Italiana, but never fear- although the culprit escaped in a dramatic meander about 15 minutes before the polizia arrived, they did put the wet pants in an evidence bag. Or at least a plastic bag of some sort.

Anyway, today we were also introduced to our lovely interpreter/guide Domenica, a Brooklyn-raised donna italiana who now lives in Roma completing graduate school at the Collegio where we are staying. After properly and roundly mocking the students who brought the wrong version of the Bible for our Early Christian Origins course, the illustrious Kristin taught us about Caravaggio. In Santa Maria del Popolo we saw two Caravaggio works: Crocifissione di San Pietro e Conversione di Paolo. This blog has no time to analyze my feelings upon seeing these masterpieces; let it suffice to say that I "AP Art History fangirled."

Next, we went to San Carlo al Corso, a Lombard church which honors two saints and has as a relic the heart of Carlo Borromeo. However, that is not as important as the fact the I shall henceforth refer to San Carlo as The Feminist Church. Now, The Feminist Church has three notable sculptures. One is a female personification of Faith who is consecrating the Eucharist. Yes, this is on display in a Roman Catholic church down the road from Il Vaticano. Yes, it makes me very happy. The next is a statue honoring Thecla, a figure of the Apocryphal Gospels who was quite popular among Early Christians until her story was banned for being out of the kitchen. In summary: St. Paul decided to dramatically and flailingly convert her, but then decided to avoid her while vaguely mumbling about sandwhich-making. For preaching in a skirt and having a suspicious-seeming relationship with Paul, Thecla was repeatedly sentenced to excecution and Paul left her to be saved by some measly and suspiciously gender-symbolism-charged miracles. Eventually, during an expecially kung-fu one of these miracles, she realized Paul must be busy not asking for directions and went ahead and baptized herself. (If anyone wants the most reliable source to the whole real story, here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Paul_and_Thecla). Lastly, there is a statue of Judith holding the 'delicious' head of Holofernes (Full reliable story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_and_Holofernes, although I think this one is more well known). This statue is notably mirroring one of King David, a high place of honor for a female statue, and perhaps a drawing of a connection between the two feats of unlikely underdog strength. All in all, this church was my favorite part of the morning, because it shows that, despite all evidence, the roots of feminism do indeed stretch as far back as the roots of misogyny. Learning about the respect that early Christians had for feminine power was definitely my favorite part of the morning, because it's not something you usually hear about at all, but was in fact very present.

Next we saw San Lorenzo in Lucina, a church across the Tevere and closer to Piazza di Spagna. San Lorenzo memorializes a very different sort of great fire: the martyrdom by grilling of Saint Lorenzo. The grill and chains used in the "delicious" process (it was appropriate to reuse that word, right?) are on display in the church. According to Dr. Sebastian, Lorenzo informed his grillers halfway through "I'm done, turn me over." Also according to Dr. Sebastian, ricotta pear gelato is not as delicately exotic as it sounds. Even from the outside, San Lorenzo is extremely distinctive at this moment in Roman history, due to the rennovations funded by a most pious jewlery company whose billboards over the church rennovations feature attractive women celebrating God in unusual choices of attire and poses for touring European churches (tourists are so disrespectful these days). San Lorenzo is one of many churches built over the remains of Ancient Roman housing. The excavation, scavi, underneath which we explored with our cowboy hats and whips, contains the foundations of the Roman homes, fragments of mosaics, sarcophagi, frescoes, and more. Here we learned about the difference between a wealthy Roman domus and crowded insulae, the apartments that actually started the famous fire through which Emperor Nero supposedly fiddled, because they were too cramped for cooking to happen safely without the setting of fires. Further, I was interested to hear how this was the reason that the fire was blamed on Christians, the current majority of poor living in insulae, who also at the time engaged in practices such as eating babies to the rythym of Nero's negligent fiddling, a practice which of course was later passed on to the Jews once Christians rose to power.
Very excitingly, we learned that numbered manhole covers throughout Roma serve as systematic entrances to the remains of catacombs. Our expedition into the sewers is coming soon (insert TMNT joke). In other words, the entire city is on top of another city, and another, and another.  Simply walking around Roma already puts one through immense culture shock from one block to the next, shifting without warning from Baroque to Medieval to Ancient to Rennaissance to Modern, but no jolt in the stomach tops the one accompanying the realization that one is casually leaning on a brick wall from the fourth century that is sturdier with better natural insulation than one's own home. Except perhaps the jolt immediately following that, when one realizes that the entire city is solidly resting upon miles and miles of the same. The sheer volumes of human history residing under the city brings the churches especially to a whole new level of sacred, being sacred to all cultures and creeds in their preservation of part of human heritage.

After these adventures, we discovered the cheapest gelateria yet. In the interest of keeping out the competition I will not disclose its location. Next we discovered the anxiety of worrying over our late professors and translator, wandering lost and cold about a strange city as the rest of us waited comfortably for ten minutes at our appointed meeting place. After a break back at the Collegio to make sure our feet still existed, we realized that in half a day we'd only walked over and back a measly third of Roma. Eager to rectify this, we swiftly skipped all the way across to the old part of the city to view the excavations of Trajan's Market. Here again I was struck by the massive, placid endurance of the ancient structures. The market, spanning three stories that go at least 30 feet beneath the current roads of modern Roma, lasted through centuries, even serving as a convent at one point. The remains of the market now are only a hint at its former grandeur, but seem to imply a city in themselves when one looks down at the multitide of shop foundations. The remnants of art here were some of the most fascinating we have encountered yet, mostly due to sheer size. I could try to explain more, but I will simply repeat: sheer size. We also noted that the many alcoves, cavern-like room remains, and mysterious fortified towers would be excellent for camping.

Insert a whirlwind of social diversions, food, the mockery of Italians on fountains who do not find loud laughter appropriate, Angry Birds adventures, and more excitement galore, and we come to the next light skip over very flat ground of our day. In the end, it was all worth it to see the sun setting behind the coliseum from atop the perfect hill which, when stood upon correclty, affords a view of only the ancient city. Here we also mapped out the points rubric for hitting golf balls into various coliseum windows, and Dr. Sebastian said something about a tower- I believe a Rennaissance era?

The journey back to our collegio after this point was both too long and arduous to be recounted here and the main source of the next "Notable Quotations" post that will be up. Sometime.

All in all, the most satisfyingly exhausting day yet.