Colisseum viewed from Colle Oppio Park

I’m a big advocate of the Slow Travel and Slow Food movement. If you’re not familiar with it, the basic idea is that the modern world is attracted, and addicted, to things in fast forward, and one has to make a conscious effort to go against that tendency and slow down – not because doing things slowly is necessarily better, but because some things require more time to do them properly. When you speed it up, you ruin it. For example, to make a good zuppa di fagioli (bean soup), you need at least a few hours, and you should have soaked the beans the night before. If you speed that up, you’re going to be eating some nasty, crunchy beans.

Rome is no different. For a crazy, frenetic city, the best things it has to offer require that you are not in a hurry. It takes time. Ever heard of La dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing)? They don’t call it La dolce fare tanto in fretta (the sweetness of running around).

How do you reconcile this when you only have 2-3 days? Well, It’s not easy. There is some major stuff to see without creating serious guilt – nobody wants to admit that they came to Rome and didn’t go to the Vatican. And yet, the Vatican is a big commitment and frankly, it’s not much fun [editor’s note: arttrav knows how to have fun in the Vatican, it’s a matter of perspective...]. I’m not suggesting you cross it off your list (actually, I am), but I’m going to make some suggestions of things you need to fit in to your short stay, beyond all the churches and museums and archeological ruins. If you miss some of the major sites, that’s fine. You will have experienced what Rome is about, what it has to offer, and what it feels like.

1) In the evening, go into the center and get a gelato and go for a stroll.  There’s San Crispino, a famous gelateria near the Trevi Fountain that’s worth starting at. Take the A line subway to Spagna and walk from there. Get your gelato, pass by the fountain, throw in your coin to ensure a trip back, and then head over to the Pantheon for a prosecco (Venetian champagne) in the piazza. Or just stroll without a destination. Get lost in the labyrinthine streets of the center.

2) Go to the Borghese Gallery

Probably the best collection of art EVER – and managed in the most painless way imaginable. Since you’ve booked ahead there’s no lines and you can only stay 2 hours, which is right when museum fatigue kicks in anyway*. Get the audio guide – it’s well worth it and you’ll get so much more out of the experience – you’ll actually appreciate Bernini and Caravaggio. Afterwards, get one of those big buggy-bikes and ride around the Villa Borghese. Look at the view of the city from the Pincio and sit in the cafe near the lake and have a coffee. [*note that this is the opinion of the guest poster, not of arttrav, who got kicked out of the Borghese trying to stay beyond the time allotted, 2 hours is nowhere near enough, and museum fatigue is a myth.]

3) When going to the Colisseum, head there by way of the Colle Oppio park which was built out of the remains of Trajan’s bathhouses and over Nero’s “Golden House”. Stop for a Campari and soda, or an Aperol (orange flavored aperitif) at the cafe in the park. It’s a great way to first see the Colisseum.

4) Go to Testaccio, an overlooked, blue-collar neighborhood of Rome near the Tiber river, across from Trastevere.

Testaccio, flickr user @telwink

In ancient times, this was the main trade neighborhood for goods coming and going into Rome, and takes its name from Monte Testaccio, a man-made “mountain” created from broken pieces of discarded terra cotta pottery. Take a stroll through the market, or visit the Città dell’Altra Economia, a sort of haven of all things organic (bio) in what was once the city’s slaughterhouse. Eat at Pizzeria at Da Remo, an inexpensive, a quintessential neighborhood pizzeria experience.

5) Stay in an apartment and cook something for yourself. The markets in Rome are amazing. The mercati rionali are neighborhood ones. Head to Piazza Vittorio for the cheap, gritty, good stuff if you’re near Termini, or there’s the market in Testaccio which is also the real deal. Or get some fresh mozzarella, olives and bread and make a picnic to have in a park – there’s the Villa Torlonia, the Vila Ada, the Villa Borghese, and the Villa Celimontana. In the summer, these parks often have open air cinemas and music. You can see some food shopping advice here from some kids (mine) who are particularly “in-the-know”.

Also, prepare to come back. If you threw your coin in the Trevi Fountain, this is a guarantee anyway. The Vatican will still be there. You can always hit it on the second or third trip.

Trevi fountain, flickr user @pmorgan67

Steve Brenner and his wife Linda Martinez moved to Rome with the dream of opening an eco-friendly, budget hotel called The Beehive. They also own Cross-pollinate, a vacation rental service for apartment rentals and B&Bs around Europe. They currently live in Orvieto, a medieval hill-town in Umbria, an hour north of Rome.

Sant'Andrea al Quirinale - photo flickr @conormac

Over a century before Bernini’s creations, Martin Luther had begun the Protestant Reformation, highlighting significant cracks in the armour of the Church, and undermining Her temporal and spiritual power. The Roman Church responded with a counter-Reformation. Codified by the Council of Trent, it sought to re-establish the supremacy of the Roman Church, in part through emphasis on the veneration of the Virgin, the saints, their relics and miracles. Dominant among the figures who would carry forward this new impulse was Ignatius Loyola, whose Spiritual Exercises provided meditations and prayers designed to create a state of spiritual ecstasy, and embodied the changing mood.

By the early-seventeenth century, over half a century later, military victories, and wealth from the New World, brought new optimism to Rome. In celebration, a flurry of canonizations followed, including St Ignatius in 1622. The new religious atmosphere required a different aesthetic, and an theatrical style, charged with emotion, developed in distinct contrast to the didactic and austere art which had emerged from the Council of Trent. This new style was suited to the ever-increasing predilection for miracles, apparitions, and saints in ecstasy. The style came to be known as the ‘Baroque’, and its undoubted star was Bernini, himself a follower of the Spiritual Exercises.

In 1658, aged sixty, Bernini was commissioned to design a new church for the novices of the Society of Jesus, the order founded by Ignatius, on the Quirinal hill. It was to replace an unremarkable church on a small, awkward site. Bernini exploited this tricky location to maximum effect by employing a form that would have been anathema to the logical Platonism of the Renaissance a century and a half earlier; while Renaissance architects had favoured the geometric rigidity of circle and square, the ever-changing curvatures of the malleable oval made it the Baroque form par excellence. Moreover its versatility was ideal for concealing the awkward dimensions of the site, with axes which could be as long or short as necessary. At Sant’Andrea, Bernini took advantage of all of these aspects and created an oval plan, unusually placing the entrance and high altar on the short axis.

photo flickr @profzucker

Let’s take a look at the facade, which breaks all the logical rules of Classicism. Walking along via del Quirinale, one is initially drawn into the entrance space by the curve of an exedra. The narrow entrance is more monumental gateway than church entrance. However, its apparent classicism (the archway over the doorway is framed by pilasters and topped with a pediment) belies a number of idiosyncratic and profoundly a-classical features. The area of the archway seems to have swung down and forward, as if on a hinge, to create the protruding portico supported by two columns. The bases of these columns are rotated forty-five degrees to the façade, their corners pointing out toward the visitor: the deliberate application of a solecism which would have Vitruvius spinning in his grave. This ‘pronaos’ is topped with a curved and heavily broken pediment, in louche imitation of the sober pediment above which looks on, unamused. The scrolls of the broken pediment, entirely stripped of any pretence of structural function, frame the crest of the church’s patron, Prince Camillo Pamphilj. If we look down, the semi-circular floor of the portico spills into a flight of concentric steps which seep out, occupying the entrance exedra.

If we raise our eyes above the quadrant walls of this exedra, the sides of the church can be seen curving back, topped with the scrolls of the buttresses. The rigid verticality of the façade is the point of union between these opposing curves but, as demonstrated by the curved portico and stairs, simply cannot contain them; they even force themselves through the façade governed by the sober giant order of pilasters.

Sant'Andrea Interior - photo flickr @wsifrancis

Upon entering, the visitor is immediately presented with the high altar. The unusual positioning of the oval means that the distance between the entrance and the altar is the shortest in the church; a very direct confrontation. After this initial impression, our eyes move around the space, but the darkness of the recessed side chapels, and the solid piers which close the long axis, send our gaze back to the altar.

Reinforcing the focus on the high altar, the entablature which runs right around the interior breaks forward slightly to create a chapel articulated by columns of richly veined red marble which stand out from the two-dimensional pilasters which demarcate the other chapels. Within, the small altar chapel receives light from an invisible source, a device already employed by Bernini at the Cornaro chapel just down the road at the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.

Guillaume Courtois’ rich painting of the Martyrdom of Saint Andrew appears to be placed on the altar by a host of angels who descend on beams of light of gilded wood and stucco. An apparition is created. As our eyes are drawn to the pediment over the chapel entrance, it is as if this vision cannot be contained by the architectural delineation of the space. The marble figure of Saint Andrew on a cloud appears to have floated up from the altarpiece through the pediment, which curves obligingly to allow him to pass and continue to the heavens, represented by the richly decorated elliptical dome, divided by gilded ribs and decorated with ever-decreasing hexagonal coffers, which seem to be sucked heavenwards through the lantern stuccoed with the dove of the Holy Spirit, which bubbles over with cherubim. Thus the crucifixion in Courtois’ altarpiece is merely a prelude to the truly important fact of the ascension into heaven, and the earthly rules of architecture are irrelevant in the face of divinity. The dynamism of the ascension is emphasised by the darkness of the lower part of the church, while the heavenly dome glows with gilt and white stucco. Radiantly illuminated by windows above the cornice and the lantern, it is the focus of St Andrew’s gaze.

Both inside and out, it is as if the rationality of the classical language of architecture must develop to express that which cannot be expressed rationally; an artistic expression of the religious experiences the followers of the Spiritual Exercises, including Bernini himself, sought to cultivate.

Tourist information

Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, via del Quirinale 29. Open Mon-Fri 8.30am-noon, 3-7pm; Sat & Sun 9am-noon, 3.30-7pm.

Santa Maria della Vittoria, via XX Settembre 17. Open Mon-Sat 8.30am-noon, 3.30-6pm; Sun 3.30-6pm.

About the author

Agnes Crawford is an architectural historian and a licensed tour guide in Rome with her own business, understandingrome.com. Her itinerary “Bernini, Borromini, and the spirit of the Baroque” offers visitors an in-depth exploration and discussion of Sant’Andrea, the Cornaro Chapel, and other sites crucial to the period. On twitter she is @understandrome.

All photos: Wikimedia commons unless specified flickr user

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The famed circular courtyard at Villa Farnese (Caprarola).

You could be forgiven for thinking that outside the main tourist sights, Rome, Viterbo, perhaps Tivoli, there isn’t much to see in Lazio. You’d be wrong. Northern Lazio, in between Rome and Florence, is an area mostly ignored by tourists and yet, for me, it’s one of the most interesting and beautiful regions you could visit. Infused by culture and history, firmly situated in the Etruscan, Roman, medieval, renaissance and modern heartland of Italy, Northern Lazio is more layered and complex than you could imagine. In this article, I’m going to describe a day out in Northern Lazio, taking in two cities, a palazzo, an agriturismo, and possibly a carnival or two.

The small cities of Caprarola and Ronciglione are very close to each other, perched on the edge of Lago di Vico, an ancient volcanic lake surrounded by farming and a nature reserve.

Caprarola & Palazzo Farnese

We’ll start in Caprarola, approximately 32 miles (51km) northwest of Rome (about 137 miles/220km from Florence), a picturesque town clinging onto a rocky outcrop with deep ravines on either side.

Palazzo Farnese (photo: flickr user _pek_)

One of the main tourist sites in Caprarola is the Palazzo Farnese (not to be confused with the French embassy in Rome which has the same name). Villa Farnese, as it is also known, started out as a fortified castle designed for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (the future Pope Paul III). However, work on the castle stopped soon after the foundations were built (between 1515 and 1530).  A grandson of Pope Paul III, also known as Alessandro Farnese, decided to turn the fortified foundations into a villa for his family. Palazzo Farnese sits atop Caprarola like a crown, dominating the city. It is built to a pentagonal plan (a consequence of its initial ‘fortress design). The villa is one of the finest examples of late Renaissance architecture, with strong Mannerist tendancies in the less formal areas (gardens, loggie).

The villa’s interiors are arranged over five floors, with each floor designed for a different function. You can reach the gallery and upper floors by five spiral staircases that dot the courtyard. The main rooms are located on the first floor, whereas a large central loggia looks down over the town. [Editor's note: The fresco decorations throughout the villa, by Tempesta and other Mannerist artists, exalt the Farnese dynasty through an iconography planned by Annibale Caro. The iconography of these and of the architecture constitute a few decades' work by the famous art historian Loren Partridge.)

The garden at palazzo Farnese Caprarola

The gardens of Palazzo Farnese are extensive, and well worth a visit in themselves. Near the Palazzo, the gardens are ornate and formal, with box topiary and ornate fountains. [Editor's note: the most famous fountain is the chain of water pictured here. There are seating areas designed to surprise - and wet - visitors.] There is also a small cavern with a pool, hidden away at the back of one of the box topiary mazes. As you progress further away from the Palazzo, the formality gives way to some chestnut woods (great for chestnuts and mushrooms in the fall) and then the giardino segreto, with a large summerhouse. The gardens continue after this with a rose garden and fountains. I didn’t go any further but there seems to be plenty more to see. The palace is open every day, except Mondays, from 8.30 to 18.45. The gardens are closed on Sundays and public holidays. Tickets are € 5.00 (€ 2.50 for 18 to 25 year olds) and entrance is free for under 18 and over 65s.

Other than the palazzo and stunning views, Caprarola also boasts a number of festivals and sagre, with Caprarola famous for its nocciole, or hazelnuts. The main sagra is in the fall, but there are many events throughout the year so do try to find out in advance if there is one there when you want to visit (check out caprarola.com for more information).

Wandering around Palazzo Farnese has the ability to build up an appetite. There are plenty of places to go in Caprarola, but I want to mention an agriturismo slightly off the beaten track, on a little back road connecting Caprarola and her neighbor, Ronciglione. Agriturismo Vazianello is 2.5km down strada vicinale di Vasiano and commands stunning views over the surrounding chestnut-covered landscape. The restaurant is open every weekend (although best to phone ahead to check if there is a wedding on) and provides really excellent food. I can heartily recommend the maialino al forno and the pappardelle al cinghiale.

Ronciglione

Ronciglione

After lunch, it’s time to continue along the back road to our next city, Ronciglione (although calling this small town a city really feels like you’re stretching it).  This is an ancient Farnese town, first mentioned in 1103. Ronciglione is located in the Cimini mountains, over two tufa scarps, on the southeastern slope of Lago di Vico. The town’s economy is based largely on agriculture, with production of nuts, chestnuts and wine a specialty. The medieval part of Ronciglione is built on a hill protected from three sides by a deep gorge. The road from Rome is welcomed into the city through an ancient gate. Next to this, is the pretty Santa Maria della provvidenza bell tower. Another bell tower, from the lost church of Sant’Andrea is considered one of the finest medieval monuments in the town. Ronciglione is dominated by two large buildings; a castle, built by Sixtus IV, and a cathedral, designed by Carolo Rainaldi in 1660. The shape of the dome is similar to those of the twin churches found in Piazza del Popolo in Rome, also designed by Rainaldi.

The carnival of Ronciglione

Naso Rosso

Ronciglione is famous for its Carnival. This is one of the oldest in central Italy and is characterized by a parade of allegoric chariots with masks and costumes and a riderless horse race. The typical mask found in Ronciglione is that of a red nose, with a white shirt (or nightshirt). Hundreds of people wearing these masks run up to passers-by offering them rigatoni pasta with tomato sauce. Whatever you do, don’t turn them down as the custom is for them to then throw the pasta (and tomato sauce) at the passer-by.

As in Siena, Ronciglione hosts a Palio, with the city divided into 9 contrades that compete for the crown. These Palio are slightly different to those in Siena and other Italian towns in that the horses are left to run without riders in what are called “empty races”. The 2011 carnival (or Carnevale) starts on the 17^th February with the first set of ‘empty races’. The first parade will be on the 27^th February and the carnival finishes on Mardi gras (8^th March) with processions and even more ‘empty races’. The full program can be here.

Horses without riders at Ronciglione (photo: www.ronciglione.org)

So there you go. Two small ‘cities’, about 10mins apart. In that space, you can find medieval churches, fortresses, a palace, one of the oldest festivals in Italy, a good Italian meal, and, if that isn’t enough, there’s always the Nature reserve and stunning views around Lago di Vico. Who said there was nothing much to see in Lazio outside the main tourist sights?

About the author, Peter McQuilton: Through a chance meeting with a Roman, his future wife, Pete McQuilton discovered the secret world of North Lazio. His website, lazioexplorer.com details his journey into Lazio, along with hints and travel/culture tips on how to survive off the tourist trail in ‘real’ Italy. In his “non-spare-time”, he works as a computer biologist at the University of Cambridge.

More on the meaning of the work (in Italian):

Altri luoghi comuni dell’estetica molteplice, simultanea e avvolgente del barocco, attraversano da sempre la cifra stilistica dell’artista: l’horror vacui, inteso come paura e al contempo tentazione dell’abisso, e lo spiazzamento logico e percettivo.

Seguendo una logica paradossale, iconoclasta e immaginosa, Echaurren fa entrare in rotta di collisione il barocco con il rock e non solo per facile assonanza. Anche il rock genera la perdita d’identità, stimolando vertiginosi movimenti e spezzando l’unità per ruotare intorno a più centri. Sono questi elementi, insieme a una acuta riflessione sul lessico futurista, altro grande polo della formazione e dell’immaginario di Echaurren, che costituiscono la base di Baroque’n’roll. Un mondo plastico provocatorio e paradossale in cui convivono senza soluzione di continuità le forme sinuose dei bassi elettrici, astratti cieli stellati, ricche cornici barocche popolate di putti e teschi e raggi di luce dorata.

MACRO Rome: Via Nizza, angolo via Cagliari in the central hall

This is the largest instance of private sponsorship for restoration in Italy as far as I know. It’s also got a really interesting communication plan. Tod’s will be permitted to call itself the “single sponsor for the restoration of the Colosseum” and will be able to use information about the restoration in its stores and website. On site, I doubt that we’re going to see a giant shoe on the side of the building – unlike the obscene placement of advertising of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. While clearly this sponsorship is in part being undertaken because it’s good for corporate image, it will be communicated in good taste. Tod’s will establish a foundation called “Amici del Colosseo” (friends of the Colosseum) that will communicate information about the restoration to the press and public.

Source: MIBAC press release

The programme is as follows:

December 3 and 4: Paul Millns (vocals and piano) and Butch Coulter (vocals, harmonica and guitar).
December 10 and 11: Elisabeth Cutler: Cutler has a rock background but has recently gotten interested in fusion and “white” blues; she has played on presigious stages like The Bitter End and CBGB’s Gallery of New York, The New Orleans Jazz e Heritage Festival and the Kerrville Folk Festival, and recently at Rocce Rosse Blues with Sinead O’Connor.
December 17: Songs from Little Princess.
December 18: Silenzio Assenzio (Francesco Infarinato: keyboard, piano, drums; Gabriele Capocchi: saxophone; Bruno Talone: trumpet and sound effects; Luca D’Intino: double bass). This band’s sound combines chill out, acid-jazz, new soul, black-music with a touch of jazz-funk.
January 7 and 8: Tony Esposito and La banda del Sole: international music and drums.

Location: Sala Macchine of the Centrale Montemartini

Opening hours: Friday and Saturday: 8.00 pm and 10.00 pm

Entrance ticket: € 8,00 Concert + Tasting

Centrale Montemartini museum is easy to get to on the subway @Piramide station.

News from my friend Valeria Lenuzza who is involved in the museum education section of this exhibit about Mexico held in Rome.

A wonderful exhibition entirely dedicated to Teotihuacan, the first great empire in the pre-Columbian America, opened at the beginning of November in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. It is organized by the Instituto nacional de Antropologia e Historia and curated by Luis Felipe Solís Olguín, archaeologist, historian and Director of the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City.

The exhibition is part of a wider project to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of the Mexican nation and the centenary of the Mexican revolution through three different exhibitions, all hosted at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni and dedicated to crucial stages in the history of Mexico: the earliest Mexican empire and the Teotihuacan civilization; modern history with a photographic show on the Mexican revolution; and, finally, the contemporary art and culture through the artworks by Carlos Amorales. This article is dedicated to the first of the three shows.

Mexico. Teotihuacan, the city of the gods

The exhibition on Teotihuacan is travelling to different cities in Europe (among these Berlin, Zurich, Paris and Madrid) and represents a unique occasion for Europeans to approach this civilization. Indeed, it is the first monographic show devoted to the Teotihuacan culture in the whole history of the research at the site, with the sole exception of  “Teotihuacan. Art from the city of the gods” held in M.H. de Young Memorial Museum at San Francisco, CA, in 1993.

Stone architectural decorations, marble, obsidian and greenstone (jadeite) sculptures, precious and colourful wall-paintings, polychrome vases, small clay figurines guide the visitor to discovery the remote and fascinating Teotihuacan civilization, often completely unknown to Europeans.

Teotihuacan was a powerful city-state, ruling on a wide area roughly corresponding to the central part of the modern Mexico, to the North of the Yucatan peninsula, between the I^st century BC and  VI^th century AD. It reached highest levels in architecture and art and in political, religious, and social organization and became a model for the succeeding Mesoamerican empires. Europeans never encountered it, landing on American shores only in the XV century AD, but many aspects of the culture into which they entered derived directly from Teotihuacan seeds.

The Aztecs were the direct descendants of the Teotihuacan culture. After the collapse of the city-state for a destruction by fire due to unknown causes, they developed a new, powerful empire in the same region, built on the Teotihuacan model and surrounded the city with a legendary aura, giving it its modern name. The Aztecs were the first to call it ‘Teotihuacan’, namely ‘the city of gods’, the place where the gods gathered and sacrificed themselves for giving a new birth to the world and recreating the heavenly bodies, a new Sun and Moon and a new humanity.

A visit to the exhibition

The exhibition on Teotihuacan in Palazzo delle Esposizioni is really worth a visit for the amount and the high artistic quality of the findings, together with the beauty and clarity of the arrangement.

More than 400 objects are displayed, borrowed from 11 mexican and 3 european museums and never gathered together before.

The visitor enters the building and the exhibition through a monumental staircase, which recreates the aspect of the steps leading to the summit of the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the sacred Feathered Serpent, and walks through the entrance hall dominated by a polychrome stone pediment representing the fore part of a jaguar, icon of the political power, decorated and surrounded with stars and other cosmic symbols.

The objects are arranged according to seven main topics, each one hosted in one of the seven galleries surrounding the hall at the ground floor of the palace.

In each room, the single topic is finely introduced through key pictures, elements or sounds. Sacred mountains represented on the wall indicate the tight connection between sacred architecture and nature in the first gallery; a virtual fire burns the wall of the second gallery to communicate the destruction caused by war and military power; imaginary drops of blood, created with light effects, fall from the ceiling of the third gallery for the theme of religion and sacrifice; the sounds of a water fall in the next room alludes to natural and cosmic cults; and so on.

In the first hall, a scale model of the ceremonial town center allows the visitor to enter the Teotihuacan perspective, with the support of a video with tridimensional and interactive reconstructions. Then, keep walking, slowly, statues and masques in different precious materials, colorful murals and ceramics, jadeite jewels, big accurately worked shells, clay gods and warriors, sculptures attesting human sacrifice rituals, coral inlays, huge obsidian blades catch the visitor to take him deeper and deeper in the marvelous archaeological testimonies of the Teotihuacan civilization and to take his breath away.

Visitor information

Mexico. Teotihuacan, the city of the gods, 9 novembre 2010 - 27 febbraio 2011

Mexico. Pictures from a Revolution, 5 ottobre 2010-9 gennaio 2011

Mexico. Carlos Amorales Remix, 9 novembre 2010-27 febbraio 2011

Hours: Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10-20; Friday and Saturday 10-22:30; closed on Monday.

Palazzo delle Esposizioni, via Nazionale 194 – 00184 Roma

Photo credits: pictures taken from the exhibition catalogue for promotional purpose

San Zeno Chapel - photo: flickr @Lawrence OP

One of my all-time favourite spots in Rome is the church of Santa Prassede on the Esquiline Hill. Tucked down a side-street a stone’s throw from Santa Maria Maggiore, it offers some of the very finest medieval mosaics in the city, and the most complete project of its period in the glorious jewel of the Chapel of Saint Zeno.

In 817, three years after the death of Charlemagne, Pope Paschal I was elected. Charlemagne’s support for the beleaguered Roman Church had been invaluable. He had been hailed as the new Constantine, and the city inherited by Paschal was one of optimistic ‘renovatio’, a sort of mini-Renaissance which sought to echo the glories of the early Church. Thus Pope Paschal planned Santa Prassede as small-scale copy of the Constantinian basilica of St Peter’s in the Vatican, complete with an internal courtyard between the main entrance and the internal façade.

Both the church and the tiny chapel of Saint Zeno in the right-hand nave were to be decorated in mosaic. On the one hand this reflected the ‘renovatio’ of the ancient Roman art of mosaic, on the other it was made possible by the arrival in Rome of Byzantine mosaic artists fleeing the reintroduction of iconoclasm in Byzantium. The mosaics at Santa Prassede can thus be considered both as the revival of the ancient art of mosaic, and of its survival, by way of the Byzantine world, the heir to the Eastern Roman Empire; this revival of the Early Christian age in Rome is felt, in part directly from Roman models, in part filtered through the Byzantine Empire.

Entrance to San Zeno Chapel

The small cross-vaulted chapel dedicated to St Zeno (one of the martyrs whose relics were brought here from the catacombs by Paschal and about whom little is known) was intended as the funerary chapel for Paschal’s mother Theodora. The chapel’s entrance gives an idea of the splendid mosaic decorations which lie within: the Virgin and Child, Saints Prassede, her sister St Pudenziana and their brother Saints Timothy and Novate are represented in the inner ring of medallions. The outer ring shows Christ and the apostles.

Put some coins in the meter by the entrance to the chapel before going in, and surround yourself in the richly enveloping gloom. As your eyes move around the chapel, the undulating forms of gilded tiles laid by hands dead for over a millenium offer varied reflections of your fifty cent illumination. The chapel is cross-vaulted, the vault’s support indicated by the recycled ancient columns. However the columns are almost free-standing, barely supporting anything, just the sort of thing that would have had Vitruvius, the Roman architect par excellence, with his stress on functionality, spinning in his grave.

From the three-dimensional gilded capitals spring two-dimensional angels, reaching up to support the image of Christ Pantocrator (from the Greek, ‘all powerful’). These are a splendid example of current scholarly discussion about the stylistic origins of these mosaics; i.e. whether they demonstrate the revival, or the survival of the antique. Whilst they have been seen as depending on the 6th-century mosaics executed during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian at San Vitale in Ravenna, in turn the mosaics at San Vitale can be interpreted as being dependant on Roman floor mosaics. If this theory is accepted then the mosaics at San Zeno can be placed in a context which wends its way back to the Roman antique.

Christ Pantocrator - photo: flickr @Lawrence OP

The Byzantine influence also immediately makes itself felt as one enters the chapel. Opposite the entrance wall the figures of St John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary indicate the (east-facing) window between them. This is thought to represent the Byzantine iconographical tradition of the deesis. From the Greek meaning ‘entreaty’ the deesis shows the John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary gesturing towards an image of Christ. In this case the image of Christ isn’t present, or rather he is above them (and indeed upside down on the ceiling).

However if we interpret the light of the window as heavenly light – St John the Evangelist says Christ described himself as the “Light of the World; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12) – then the window itself stands for the figure of Christ. This reading would have been well-known by the artists, and of course by the papal patron: in the 4th century, St Augustine had referred to this quotation, and added weight to it, by saying that Christ should not be considered as a simply metaphorical light; by the 5th century the description of Christ as “Lumen de lumine” had entered the Mass.

St John the Evangelist is shown on the right wall as one enters the chapel, holding his book. He is on the left hand side of the other window which illuminates the chapel particularly splendidly in the morning. Across the window from him are Saints James and  Andrew.

hetoimasia - photo: flickr @prof zucker

On the entrance wall, and opposite the deesis, is the representation of another eastern iconographical theme, the hetoimasia. The Greek term means “preparation of the throne”; an empty throne is that which awaits Christ’s return for the day of Judgement. In this case the throne is indicated by Saints Peter and Paul, protectors of the Roman church. The charming flowers at their feet are a reminder of the eternal spring. On the seat of the empty throne is a cross that is reminiscent of the Roman Imperial representation of the Emperor’s rule by his insignia resting on an empty throne; once again reminding of the renovatio here at play.

On the left wall as one enters the chapel, are the almost identical female saints, Agnes, Pudenziana (Prassede’s sister), and Prassede herself. In appearance somewhere between Roman ladies and Byzantine princesses, they again evoke the blend of Roman cultures the chapel represents. Beneath the arch the agnus dei, the lamb of God, stands on the source of four springs from which deer drink. Below, the Virgin dressed in blue is shown with Prassede and Pudenziana on either side, and to their left is Theodora, mother of Paschal for whom the chapel had been built. The blue ‘nimbus’ around her head indicates she was still alive when the chapel was decorated.

Theodora with the Blue Nimbus - photo: Flickr @sacred destinations

To the right of the female saints is the scene of the descent of Christ into Limbo, its lower part damaged by the later and rather brutally created doorway. Known in the East as the Anastasis, it is not mentioned in the scriptures but was a solution postulated regarding the problem of what happened to just people who had died before the coming of Christ. This theme first appears in the 8^th century and was a creation of the Byzantine world; another reinforcement of the role of Byzantine influence on the chapel’s decoration.

As well being fabulously beautiful, the chapel offers a view into the hybrid of the revival of Constantinian Rome and the survival of the ancient art of mosaic filtered through the lens of the Byzantine world. Like any great work of art it is inextricably of its time; the tiles speak of the brief relief from the Church’s relentless struggle provided by Charlemagne’s support, the politicising desire to represent this through the evocation of the early glory of the established church at the time of Constantine, and the contemporaneous abolition of religious images in Byzantium which all came together to create this gem sandwiched between a kebab shop and an Irish pub.

For other mosaics sponsored by Pope Paschal visit Santa Cecilia in Trastevere and Santa Maria in Domnica on the Celian Hill.

Agnes Crawford has a Master of Arts degree in Architectural History from Edinburgh University and is a licensed tourist guide in Rome. Her company is Understanding Rome.

World Wide Apps event in Rome

Okay, the title of the post is a leeetle misleading… because last week I wasn’t so much traveling in Rome with Foursquare as actually in Rome, with the co-founder of Foursquare. Yup, yours truly got sent for work to an event held at Telecom headquarters called World Wide Apps at which Naveen Selvadurai was a speaker, and afterwards I interviewed him – on video (below). And since I wanted to become a Foursquare super user overnight, I checked in everywhere and I did what I could to discover the social and travel potential of this app in Rome.

Foursquare - as Naveen emphasized a few times – started with the idea of travel in mind. He and his friend like to travel and discover new places, even in their own city. Foursquare allows you to share this experience with friends when you check in to places, receive and give tips about the places you discover, and collect points and badges as you go. If you check into a given location a certain number of times, you become “mayor” unless there is someone who goes there even more often, and this plays into game theory and encourages us to check in more often. Although Foursquare is really quite new in Italy – there are nowhere near the number of users that there are in the States – most of the salient points have been added in the system, at least for major cities. And if the point you want isn’t there, of course you can add it (like I added our beach establishment in Maremma).

Andreotti bar in Rome with illy coffee cups designed by Rehberger

In Rome, for the first time I experienced two features of Foursquare – the social aspect and the travel tips feature. First, the social. A Roman colleague and I checked in to a bar (Andreotti – very good) near the event, after a few minutes a guy walks in and says “Giorgio!! I saw you were here and so came in to say hi!”. On foursquare you “friend” people and can see if they’ve checked in nearby, so if the area is sufficiently concentrated with Foursquare users, you might enjoy social moments like this. If this seems as creepy to you as it does to me, two solutions – don’t check in everywhere (and never at your own home), and don’t accept friendships from strangers. Common logic.

The seat of the Pope at San Giovanni in Laterano

Rather later that night I checked in (on Foursquare and at a real reception desk) at the hotel that I’d chosen online without much forethought and I noticed a tip from another user who suggested visiting the Archbasilica of San Giovanni in Laterano which turned out to be just 400 meters away. Well, how could I NOT!! Had I not looked on Foursquare, I might have missed the opportunity to see this important church that is the cathedral of Rome and the seat of the Popes (there’s even a marble pope-throne in there, although it’s just a copy now). So I made sure to get up an hour earlier in order to visit the church before catching my train out.

swarm badge received in rome

As you know, Foursquare awards badges when you complete certain tasks, and at the World Wide Apps conference, enough geeks checked in in one place to receive the much coveted Swarm Badge!!

The video interview was for our client Impresa Semplice, the cell phone service for small businesses offered by Tim. So the questions that my colleague Giorgio wrote were aimed at informing small business owners how Foursquare could benefit their business.

The current exhibit is “Roma” with works by the American artist Philip Guston, who produced these pieces in 1970-1 when he was a fellow at the American Academy.

When? Every Thursday night ore 19-22, with the two bands on rotation as follows:

• 10 giugno 2010 – Matisse Jazz Trio
• 17 giugno 2010 – Times New Romans: Serata Jazz anni ‘40 e ‘50
• 24 giugno 2010 – Matisse Jazz Trio
• 1 luglio 2010 – Times New Romans: Serata Blues alla “Route 66″
• 8 luglio 2010 – Matisse Jazz Trio
• 15 luglio 2010 – Times New Romans: Serata Latin Jazz
• 22 luglio 2010 – Matisse Jazz Trio
• 29 luglio 2010 – Times New Romans: Serata Swing e Jazz

event information on the official website

Stay in Monti

Monti's famous piazza and fountain

Monti is a real residential area only about one km away from Termini train station. It’s full of original ateliers, homewares shops, galleries, and good restaurants. It’s mostly made up of two streets, Via dei Serpenti and Via del Boschetto, and a piazza (Madonna dei Monti). The piazza was featured in the Italian film “La notte prima degli esami” (the night before the exam) in a view similar to the one shown here.

As in many Roman residential areas, most of the buildings in Monti have rooftop access, many of which have been transformed into luscious hanging gardens! Even our cheap hotel had one. The view is great – at the end of via dei Serpenti you can see the Colosseum.

Why stay in Monti? Because it’s close to metro (Cavour) and bus stops (on via cavour or the little 117 electric bus), it’s right downtown and a short walk or bus ride everywhere, but it’s part of “real Rome”. Besides a mini-supermarket and little local food stores, the area is full of restaurants from every ethnicity and funky wine bars. There are three Indian restaurants in one block (they say the best is Il Maraja) and we tested the pricier Japanese place on via dei Serpenti (Hasekura) which was quite authentic.

Rooftop garden at Hotel Grifo

I stayed this time at a budget hotel called Hotel Grifo. At 80 euros for the double in high season don’t expect charm, really hot water, or anything fresh at breakfast, but the sheets were crisp and clean, and most importantly the staff were VERY accommodating. They even brought me a lower pillow and agreed not to spray their obnoxious floral room deodorant in our room after I noted that it gave me allergies. The inner room they gave me had NO external traffic noise, though I could hear the neighbours and anyone on the courtyard sneeze or talk. But that’s normal even in my apartment building at home in Florence.

Make this tip 1a, but if you like fresh fruit at breakfast, don’t pay for a more expensive hotel, just run out to the fruttivendolo (fruit vendor store) and bring it into the breakfast room with you! In this way an extra euro completed my breakfasts at the budget hotel.

I promise this is the only really long tip.

See the Colosseum at night

The colosseum is beautifully lit up at night.

This is an easy one. I’d never walked over to the Colosseum at night. By day I’ve been under the pounding sun that reflects off the darn Roman paving, in that space that is inundated by tourists, vendors selling useless gadgets, and men dressed up as fake gladiators posing for (paid) photos with the aforementioned tourists.

At night, it’s a different story entirely. It’s MAGICAL. It’s lit up, and quite empty. You can also get close to the Arch of Constantine and see the reliefs even better than during the day.

Get the three-day public transportation pass

For 11 euros, buy a bus pass that gives you unlimited access to busses, trams, and metro. This can be purchased from the machines in the stations or from tabacchi stores. A single ticket is 1 euro so to break even you need to take transportation four times a day, which is easy if you like to go back to your hotel for a rest after lunch… but also between sites. If you have the pass you’ll not think twice about hopping on a bus for just a few stops, or about crossing the city in an illogical way to see something that interests you.

Hopper: Morning Sun, Columbus Museum Ohio

At Milan’s Palazzo Reale is the first major retrospective in Italy dedicated to the American artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967), the famous realist painter. This show moves to Rome in February so if you cannot see it in Milan, you have plenty of time to catch it in Rome.

My Mom went there on her day trip to Milan and has brought back some fun pictures taken in the exhibit’s interactive section (see below), in which visitors get the chance to pose in the same position as the woman in the famous painting “Morning Sun” of 1952.

Mom writes: “One hundred and sixty of the artist’s works are on display — mainly sketches, preliminary studies, and the artist’s ledgers. There were some famous works, but curiously missing was the painting Nighthawks, easily Hopper’s most recognizable painting. But I thought the show was well done and certainly taught me a lot about the artist, his life, his themes, his subjects and his artistic methods.”

Here’s what you can do in the interactive section, I got a good laugh out of this:

This show is on in Milan until January 31 2010 and then in Rome Feb 16 until June 13 2010.

From the press release:

The exhibition presents more than 160 works, including famous masterpieces such as Summer Interior (1909), Pennsylvania Coal Town (1947), Morning Sun (1952), Second Story Sunlight (1960), A Woman in the Sun (1961) and various paintings that have never been exhibited, like the stunning Girlie Show (1941). It explores the whole of Hopper’s oeuvre, and all the techniques used by an artist now viewed as one of the classic painters of the twentieth century.

The exhibition will be staged in Palazzo Reale in Milan from 14 October 2009 to 31 January 2010 and is sponsored by Roche Group, the leading health industry company. Immediately after that it will be held in Rome, at the Fondazione Roma Museum, from 16 February to 13 June 2010, and then at the Fondation de l’Hermitage in Lausanne, from 25 June to 17 October.

The artist

Self Portrait, Whitney Museum

Hopper was born and grew up in Nyack, a small town in New York State. He studied illustration for a short period, then painting at New York School of Art under legendary masters William Mer­ritt Chase and Robert Henri. He visited Europe three times (from 1906 to 1907, in 1909 and 1910) and his experiences in Paris, above all, made a lasting mark on him: he remained a lifelong Francophile, even after settling permanently in New York in 1913.
Despite his imposing physical presence – he was six foot two – he was famous for his reserve, and very rarely wrote or spoke about his work. He died at the age of 84 and his work enjoyed the esteem of critics and the public throughout his career, despite the success of the up-and-coming avant-garde movements, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art.
In 1948 the magazine “Look” named him one of America’s greatest artists; in 1950 the Whitney Museum dedicated an important retrospective to him, and in 1956 he appeared on the cover of”Time”. In 1967, the year of his death, he represented the United States at the prestigious Bienal di São Paulo. Since then Hopper’s work has been celebrated in numerous exhibitions and has inspired countless painters, poets and filmmakers. In a 1995 essay the great novelist John Updike paid an eloquent tribute to his “calm, silent, stoic, luminous, classic” works.

The exhibition
Edward Hopper’s career is closely linked to the Whitney Museum of American Art, which hosted various exhibitions of his works from the first in 1920 at the Whitney Studio Club, to the memorable shows held in the museum in 1960, 1964 and 1980. Since 1968, thanks to the bequest of the artist’s widow Josephine, the Whitney has been home to his entire legacy: more than 3,000 works which include paintings, drawings and etchings.
Curated by Carter Foster, the Whitney Museum curator who granted the loan of the largest nucleus of works, the exhibition, realized with the technical coordination of Carol Troyen, also boasts other important loans from the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, the Terra Foundation for American Art in Chicago and the Columbus Museum of Art.
Structured in seven sections according to chronological order and theme, the Italian exhibition covers Hopper’s entire oeuvre, from his education, to his years as a student in Paris, up to his “classic” and best-known period of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, closing with the large, intense images of his later years. The show explores all of the artist’s favourite techniques: oil, watercolour and etching, and devotes special attention to the fascinating relationship between his preparatory drawings and his paintings: a vital aspect of his work that up till now has not been greatly explored in the exhibitions dedicated to him.

The first three sections: “Self Portraits”, “Education and Early Works. Hopper the Illustrator” and “Hopper in Paris”, present a group of promising self portraits, the works from his academic period and the light-filled sketches and works of his Paris period, such as the well-known painting Soir Bleu (1914). The room dedicated to “Defining the Image: Hopper the Etcher”, with masterpieces such as Night Shadows (1921) and Evening Wind (1921), highlights his elegant technique and that “sense of the incredible potential of everyday life” that brought him great success and marked the start of a distinguished career.

The section entitled “Hopper’s Method: from Sketch to Canvas”, which celebrates the artist’s extraordinary talent for drawing, and explores his modus operandi, presents a significant set of preparatory drawings for paintings such as Morning Sun (1952) and the earlier work New York Movie (1939), the sketches for which clearly reveal how his female figure takes shape: starting out almost as a portrait of his wife Jo (his only model), the figure gradually evolves into the pensive usherette with film star looks standing in the movie theatre – one of the artist’s favourite subjects. This section shows how Hopper’s realism is often the result of an amalgamation of several images and situations captured at different times and places, not a simple reproduction from life. The exhibition also exceptionally includes one of his Artist’s Ledger Book, the famous ledgers he and his wife compiled, and which contain sketches of many of his oil paintings.
In the rooms dedicated to “Hopper’s Eroticism” the exhibition gathers some of his most significant images of women absorbed in contemplation, for the most part nude or partially undressed, alone in interiors. Together with the works in the section “Artist’s Essence: Time, Space, Memory” these works are a consummate representation of the artist’s aesthetic, his understated form of realism and above all his ability to reveal beauty in the most common subjects, often with a cinematographic slant that was much appreciated by the critics.

Dawn in Pennsylvania,1942, Terra Foundation

Hopper has long been associated with atmospheric images of urban buildings and the people who inhabit them, but rather than skyscrapers – emblems of the aspirations of the jazz age – he preferred the dilapidated red facades of anonymous shops, and lesser-known bridges. Some of his favourite subjects are images of life in tranquil middle class apartments, often glimpsed through a window from a passing train, and settings like diners and movie theatres; images that have acquired iconic status, as in some of the famous masterpieces presented here: Cape Cod Sunset (1934), Second Story Sun­light (1960) and A Woman in the Sun (1961). Hopper also painted some stunning watercolours during summers spent in Gloucester (Massachusetts), in Maine, and in Truro (Cape Cod) as of 1930. The sea rarely features in these paintings, which show sun-baked sand dunes, lighthouses and humble cottages, enlivened by sensuous contrasts of light and shade; paintings which always hint at a story yet leave the motivations of the protagonists unclear.

The exhibition also features an important photographic, biographical and historical component, tracing American history from the 1920s to the 1960s: the Depression, the Kennedys, the boom years. An opportunity for greater insight into today’s global recession and Barack Obama’s America.
The Edward Hopper exhibition aims to see people as “active subjects” rather than “consumers”, with a view to creating an event that, first and foremost, will be a unique, engaging experience for visitors. With this objective in mind, for the first time in Italy the exhibition exceptionally hosts an interactive and multimedia installation by Gustav Deutsch, the renowned Austrian film maker and video artist (Vienna 1952), who has produced countless films, videos and performances throughout the world. Chosen by Arthemisia, in agreement with Palazzo Reale in Milan, the installation entitled Friday, 29th August 1952, 6 A.M., New York will enable visitors to physically enter Hopper’s world, with a reconstruction of the setting depicted in the painting Morning Sun (1952). In this way visitors will be able to appear in the painting, entering the “set” and moving around at will, like actors in a series of brief plays, filmed by a camera and projected onto a screen.

Educational activities
The exhibition features exclusive, engaging educational activities designed by Francesca Valan for children and young people (aged 5-14) visiting the exhibition. Those who wish to follow the stages in Hopper’s creative process will receive a beautiful sketchpad at the entrance, a scale reproduction of the one that the artist himself used, containing all the indications to venture into his world. Younger visitors (aged 2-5), accompanied by their parents, will be able to take part in a fun treasure hunt, following the instructions printed on a number of special postcards.

all images used with permission

For more info: www.edwardhopper.it

“While the Coliseum stands, Rome shall stand; when the Coliseum falls, Rome shall fall; when Rome falls, the world shall fall.” — Venerable Bede (c. 673-735), quoting a prophecy of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims.

The Colosseum or Roman Coliseum is an elliptical amphitheatre in the center of the city of Rome, Italy. Originally the Flavian Amphitheatre, it is the largest amphitheatre ever built in the Roman Empire. It is one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and engineering. Occupying a site just east of the Roman Forum, its construction started in 70 AD under the emperor Vespasian and was completed in 80 AD under his son Titus, with further modifications being made during Domitian’s reign (81-96). The Colosseum hosted large-scale spectacular games that included; fights between animals, the killing of prisoners by animals and other executions, naval battles via flooding the arena, and combats between gladiators. It has been estimated that about 500,000 people and a million wild animals died in the Colosseum games.

Photo: wikimedia commons

After Nero committed suicide in 68, Vespasian (emperor 69-79) decided to shore up his shaky regime by building an amphitheatre for the people on the site of the lake in the gardens of Nero’s palace. The Colosseum was a grand political gesture. Suitably for that great city, it was the largest amphitheatre in the Roman world, capable of holding some 50,000 spectators.

The Colosseum was opened in AD 80 by Vespasian’s son and successor, Titus. Given the scale of the enterprise it was built remarkably quickly. And given the site, in a valley where there was previously a lake, it had to be planned carefully. When the Colosseum opened, there was a marathon of celebrations that went on for 100 days at every level of society from royalty to the barbarian, as they revelled in their new stadium. 9,000 wild animals were killed in the one hundred days of celebration which inaugurated the amphitheatre.

The Colosseum was ingeniously designed. The invention of arches and vaults made of brick-faced concrete allowed Roman architects much greater spans and more visual variety. The Colosseum’s elaborate honeycomb of arches, passages and stairways allowed thousands of spectators to get into the space to watch murderous games. And the Colosseum’s imposing exterior was then, as it still is, a marvelous monument to Roman imperial power.

The ordered beauty and formal regularity of the Colosseum’s exterior is created by three storeys of superimposed arches with engaged (i.e. semi-circular) columns. These columns are of different orders on each storey (Doric at the bottom, then Ionic, with Corinthian columns in the third storey). The fourth higher blind storey is punctuated by pilasters, decorated with Corinthian capitals. The exterior was decorated at the top with glistening gilded bronze shields, and the arches were filled with painted statues of emperors and gods.

The passage of the Colosseum was designed so that the immense venue could fill in 15 minutes, and be evacuated in 5 minutes. Each entrance and exit was numbered, as was each staircase. There were 80 entrances in all, 76 for ordinary spectators and 4 for the imperial family. The entrances were marked by giant porticoes, each topped by a gilded horse-drawn chariot. The emperor also had a private entrance, which went under the seats, and emerged in the imperial box.

Seating was divided into different sections. The podium, the first level of seating, was for the Roman senators, and the emperor’s private box was also located on this level. Above the podium was the maenianum primum, for the other Roman aristocrats who were not in the senate. The third level, the maenianum secundum, was divided into three sections. The lower part, the was for wealthy citizens, while the upper part was for poor citizens. A third, wooden section was a wooden structure at the very top of the building, added by Domitian. It was standing room only, and was for lower class women.

The most ingenious part of the Colosseum was its cooling system. It was roofed using a canvas covered net-like structure made of ropes, with a hole in the center. This roof sloped down towards the center to catch the wind and provide a breeze for the audience; Sailors manipulated the ropes.

The Colosseum has suffered many disasters including a great fire of 217 following a lightening strike which put the Colosseum out of action for 21 years. Two earthquakes in 442 and 508 damaged the main structure of the historic stadium forcing it to shut down for good in 524.

After the splendor of imperial times, the Colosseum was abandoned, and in turn it became a fortress for the medieval clans of the city, a source of building materials, picturesque scenery for painters, a place of Christian worship. Today it is a challenge for archaeologists and a location for events and shows. And even though the once-perfect red brick arches are falling apart and the animals and warriors that moved through those gates are no longer here, the ghosts of glory days gone by are easy to sense.

As a visitor, you will be overwhelmed at the architecture you see at the Colosseum site and you will recognize the designs because they have been used in stadiums all over the globe. The Colosseum is ranked one of the premier attractions in Rome and tourists from different corners of the world assemble here to explore the mystic aura that engulfs this grand monument.

Rome: October 23 2009: The first monographic show in Rome on the most innovative sculptor of the 20th century opens to the public today. “Calder” is on at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome from October 23 2009 until February 14 2010, with 110 works on display. The show was presented on October 21st by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano in a vernissage attended by important members of the international arts and culture world (and by this author!).

Curator Alexander S.C. Rower, president of the Calder Foundation of New York, has displayed the famous moving and stable pieces, wire mobiles, bronzes, gouaches, drawings, and oil paintings in essentially chronological order in order to highlight the fundamental aspects of the artist’s career.

Calder’s sculptures enjoy an enormous popularity; they harmonize form, colour, and movement in a whole conceived of as the “universe” – “every element can move around, oscillate back and forth, in a mutual relationship with every other element”.

Alexander Calder’s career spans most of the 20th century and he is one of the most famous and esteemed sculptors of our time. This retrospective exhibition documents Calder’s entire artistic career, not only through his most important works but also with the display of some pieces less known to the general public. For example, the itinerary starts out with some figurative beginnings in oil, gouache and wire sculpture, moving on to bronzes from the 1930s, until the discovery of the abstract and the invention of the mobile and stabile.

A group of small bronzes that Calder made while in Paris in the 1930s is one of the lesser known displays; these figures of acrobats or contortionists demonstrate the artist’s experiments in media (from gesso to metal) and the ways he worked out concepts of movement.

Calder is better known for how he used his innovative genius to revolutionize the course of modern art. The first step in this was the creation of a new sculptural technique: outlining mass and suggesting volume with just a few lines of metalic thread. Calder’s great fame came with the invention of his “mobiles“, hanging mobile works composed of abstract elements that move in ever- changing harmony. He is also known for his monumental outdoor sculptures, made of forged steel, that beautify the world’s public spaces.

The big attractions of the exhibition include some of his most famous mobiles: Untitled from 1933, Spines (Ludwig Museum, 1940), Roxbury Flurry from 1946 and Big Red from 1959 lent by the Whitney Museum of New York; also, Cascading Flowers (1949) from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Le 31 Janvier (1950) from Paris’s Pompidou, The Y from 1960 lent by the Menil Collection in Houston. Of particular note is the massive eight-meter high monumental mobile hung in the grand central hall of the expo building; it is part of the permanent collection of the Pittsburgh airport and of course an important loan for this show.

Attendees will enjoy walking around the rooms of the exhibition, set up on two floors in the pala expo, with the abstract works hanging ethereally from the ceiling. The illumination of the works and space is exceptional; lights cause large white discs to be projected under some of the pieces, creating a shadow game of “art within art”.

INFO: “Calder”, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, via Nazionale 194 – 00184 Roma
Hours: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 10-20; Friday and Saturday 10-22:30; closed Monday
www.palazzoesposizioni.it

Photo credits: images taken from the official website for promotional purposes.

Roberta Sandler is the author of “A Brief Guide to Florida’s Monuments and Memorials” (University Press of Florida). She is a member of Society of American Travel Writers. For her efforts, Roberta wins a copy of Rome with Kids, a book by JM Pasquesi (donated by the author).

In the summer of 1816, poet Lord Byron rented a villa on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. It rained for days. Byron was running out of ways to entertain his guests: fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; Shelley’s wife, Mary; and Mary’s half-sister, Claire, who had had an affair with Byron and was now pregnant with his child.

Byron suggested they each write a ghost story, and so Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein.

Morsels of delectable trivia like this are everywhere inside the Keats-Shelley House. Built in 1725, the home overlooks Rome’s Spanish Steps and is a must-see for culture lovers. Two rooms on the second floor were home to English poet John Keats from late 1820 until his death in early 1821 at the age of 26. The house, now a museum and library, preserves the memory of Keats and fellow poet Percy Shelley, both of whom lived and died in Italy.

Familiarity with these leading poets of Romanticism (1789-1837) isn’t a pre-requisite for enjoying the rich history of the house; guided and self-guided tours provide fascinating insight into the lives and passions of Keats, Shelley and Lord Byron. This is an offbeat attraction in Rome and ultimately an unexpected delight.

Miniature of Keats, by Joseph Severn, from Keats-Shelley Museum website

In 1816, Keats began  his short but prestigious career when he wrote his first great poem, On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer. In 1819, he wrote Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn. By 1820, when he and his caregiver-friend Joseph Severn left for Rome, Keats was near death from tuberculosis, the same disease that had claimed his mother and brother.

In the Severn Room, there are portraits of Keats and his brothers that Severn painted, along with portraits of Keats’ fiancée, Fanny Brawne, and Romantic poets Leigh Hunt and William Wordsworth. A life mask of Keats and first editions of his poems are on display.

A pall of sadness lingers in the Keats Room. Keats spent his final days in bed, his only diversion being a window view of the Spanish Steps and Bernini’s boat-shaped Barcaccia fountain. The circa 1820 walnut “boat bed” is a replica of the one Keats slept in. Keats’ death mask rests near this bed.

Devastated by Keats’ death, Shelley wrote the great elegy, Adonais. He had already been acclaimed for his Prometheus Unbound. Percy Shelley’s death at age 30 was as premature and tragic as Keats’. He drowned in 1822 when his boat was caught in a storm near Livorno, on the western edge of Tuscany. He and Keats are buried in Rome’s Protestant Cemetery. Byron, whose Childe Harold and Don Juan brought him great fame, succumbed to a fatal fever in 1824 at age 36.

The Salon in the Keats-Shelley House contains artifacts that beckon reverence: manuscripts, drawings, first editions, a sonnet about Keats handwritten by Oscar Wilde, an essay handwritten by Walt Whitman, a mask that Lord Byron wore to a Venetian Carnival, a letter written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who adored Keats.

It is poetic justice that the Keats-Shelley House still exists. Curator Catherine Payling says it best: “This is a place of pilgrimage. Some people come here knowing that. Some people leave here knowing that.”  

When you visit, be sure to arm yourself with a copy of English Romantic Poetry: An Anthology (Dover Thrift Editions)

Important information

The Keats-Shelley House
Piazza di Spagna 26, 00187 Rome
Website: www.keats-shelley-house.org 
Hours: Monday-Friday 9-13, 15-18; Saturday 11-14, 15-18.
Admission: 4 Euros; reduced rate 3 Euros for ages 18 and younger and ages 65 and older.

More reading on arttrav:

• If you like authors, how about visiting Boccaccio’s House in Certaldo?
• Read the other prize-winning essays.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Studio planimetrico per San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Firenze, Casa Buonarroti

Rome: Musei Capitolini. From Oct 6 2009 to Feb 7 2010, an exhibit of over 100 drawings highlights Michelangelo’s architectural contribution to the Eternal City. During his two periods of residence in Rome (1505 to 1516, and from 1534 to his death in 1564) he worked on St. Peter’s Basilica, the Piazza del Campidoglio, the Church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini and Porta Pia, and more. While many of these works remained incomplete, the drawings on exhibit, augmented by contemporary views in print, tell the story of the strong mark that the great artist left on the city of Rome.

Open Tues-Sun, 9-20
For more information, see the exhibition website (only in Italian)

J.M. Pasquesi is a Rome expert

Rome’s coolest museum!

Action, adventure, prisoners, secret passages, sumptuous palace rooms, and treasure galore! Bring a kid, or let this emperor’s tomb turned papal palace, fortress, and even prison bring out the kid in you. No other museum is as fun to visit as maze-like Castel Sant’Angelo. You’ll love scrambling up its ramps and ramparts discovering weapons, artillery, gorgeous frescos, papal bedchambers, a Michelangelo-designed chapel, and glorious terraces with commanding views of St. Peter’s and all Rome. If that’s not enough allure, its covered passage (passetto), a battlement wall connecting it to nearby St. Peter’s, is featured in the blockbuster film, Angels and Demons.

Photo by JM Pasquesi

What makes Castel Sant’Angelo so cool? It has been around a long time, since 135 AD, and its formidable frame played a major role in many of Rome’s most fascinating periods. It all started when emperor Hadrian found himself without a proper resting place. Previously, Augustus (Rome’s first emperor) built a large mausoleum that accommodated most Imperial remains. When space ran out, Trajan, Hadrian’s adoptive father, built a private chamber under his eponymous column, but with no space to spare.

A TOMB

Just across the river from Augustus’ mausoleum, Hadrian built his enormous tomb and a bridge in front of it, for direct access. This bridge, now completely reconstructed and called Ponte Sant’Angelo, is one of Rome’s most famous, thanks to the great Baroque master, Bernini, who designed its glorious angels. Inside, the Imperial remains are long gone, but it once held some six emperors and their family members, ending with Caracalla (217AD).

Today, only the core of that first, splendid monument is intact, but models near the ticket office show how it may have looked, clad with fine marble and decorated with stately trees and statuary. Though most ancient monuments fell into decay or disappeared altogether, this fortress of a building always proved valuable. The last big transformation came with its adoption by the Church, which added fine rooms and frescoes fit for the Papal refuge it became.

A TRAP

The varied history of this castle makes touring it an adventurous treasure hunt. It is a singular experience, to follow its narrow passageways and explore its delightful terraces and dark cells. Surprises are everywhere-from lavish grand halls to teensy papal bathrooms. You can discover hidden courtyards, piles of medieval cannonball, and delicate Renaissance art. Proceed with care! You’ll have to climb up its ramp with hatches overhead, once used to drop hot oil in surprise attacks!

AN ESCAPE

Indeed, the role of fortress was recurring. The formidable frame served to keep enemies out and prisoners in, but the Church really kicked it up a notch when, in 1277AD, it built a battlement wall connecting it to the Vatican, thereby creating an escape route for the Pope when under siege. The Medici pope, Clement VII, put it to the task during the Sack of Rome (1527).

Photo by JM Pasquesi

A MIRACLE

 

 

Of the many stories to tell while touring the splendid rooms of this ancient hulk, I like the legend of how it got its name, Castle of the Angel. In 590AD, St. Gregory the Great was praying for an end to Rome’s great plague when he saw an angel sheathing its sword above the castle. He was convinced it was archangel St. Michael defeating the dread disease. The plague vanished, and the name stuck.

A HANDFUL OF HIGHLIGHTS:

1.   Three models near the ticket booth, depicting the monument at different stages.
2. The tiny museum of Arms and Armor, with artifacts dating from the Stone Age to present, mostly found in and around the site.
3. The papal rooms, with a Michelangelo-designed chapel; a Bramante-designed loggia; and frescoes by the likes of Giulio Romano and others from the Raphael school. [Editor's note: this is one of the most important examples of Roman Mannerist painting.]
4. The angel statue that originally topped the building, by Raffaello da Montelupo, is now protected in an interior courtyard.
5. The apartments of Paul III Farnese, with stuccoes by Sermoneta and Baccio da Montelupo and a charming trompe l’oeil fresco of a servant entering the room.
6. The Cupid and Psyche room, with its frescoes and gilt ceiling, complete with 16^th century bed and clavichord.
7.  The circular treasury room of Paul III, with walnut built-ins and large chests that once held Vatican treasury. It is from this room that you can continue up staircases to the tip-top of the castle roof, for the most amazing 360-degree views over Rome and a look at the angel up-close.

Finally, take a break! Grab a snack and a vista from the rooftop terrace, or relax in the castle’s moat, now a lovely park complete with playground equipment and benches.

For more on Castel Sant’Angelo and how to tour Rome, check out J.M. Pasquesi’s award-winning guide, Rome with Kids: an insider’s guide, or visit www.RomeWithKids.com. If you’re already in Rome and want to buy her book, it is available at the following locations: Almost Corner Bookshop, Lion Book store, Anglo-American Book store, and from the front desk of both the Albergo del Senato and the Hotel Raffaello.

Open Tuesday through Friday, 9-19. Tickets cost 5 euro.

Agostino Chigi was a rich Sienese banker who was the only person other than the Pope who managed to get Raphael to carry out large commissions. The Villa Farnesina was his Roman pleasure villa, just steps from the Vatican in the area now known as Trastevere. Here, he famously held lavish banquets in a loggia (now destroyed, but it sat alongside the Tiber) from which golden plates were tossed in order to impress guests with his wealth. I wonder how many times he pulled this party trick before they realized the plates were being collected downstream with nets. The villa can now be visited and the frescoes by Raphael and his school are splendidly restored. 

Raphael's Triumph of Galatea, 1512

On the main floor you first enter the Loggia di Galatea, which has some elements by Raphael within a grotesque framework that recalls earlier schemes by Pinturicchio. The master Raphael himself is fully responsible for the highly influential fresco depicting the Triumph of Galatea, a mythological scene of erotic pursuit based on a poem by Poliziano. Galatea is riding a propeller-driven seashell assisted also by putto-guided dolphins in order to escape the unwanted attentions of the cyclops Polyphemos (who, having killed Galatea’s lover Acis, is shown in the adjacent fresco). The other figures, such as sea gods, centaurs, and cupids, add to a general feeling of mythology, sexuality, and action.

A particular detail of the dolphin biting an octopus is cited as evidence of Raphael’s, or his patron’s, specific knowledge of an ancient source, and desire to reproduce it. As noted by D. Kinead in an important article of 1970 (JSTOR link), the moral and reproductive characteristics of the octopus are described in a 3d-c AD natural history treatise by Oppian as being in marked contrast to those of the dolphin. The dolphin represents love, while the octopus (who basically has sex till he exhausts himself and dies) is lust; this is a small iconographic reference to the meaning of the whole fresco.

This famous fresco was reproduced in print by Marcantonio Raimondi, which in turn

Deruta maiolica dish circa 1520 after Raphael

was the source for numerous versions in maiolica that focused on single elements of the print. For example, a plate from Deruta circa 1520 takes the swimming putto and rotates him so that he is standing on the dolphin. I reproduce it here because it is hard to find – it’s in a private collection in Assisi and reproduced on page 128 of the exhibition catalogue “La Ceramica Umbra al Tempo di Perugino” (Silvana Editoriale 2004). Maiolica pieces like this attest to the stylistic domination of Raphael in this period and to a desire to satisfy a glut in the market for real Raphael products. If you keep an eye open in the maiolica sections of small museums across Italy, you’ll find plenty more examples of works after the Galatea that depict either the female figure or this putto, though the dolphin biting an octopus may have been too obscure for maiolica audiences, because it is not included. 

Obscene fruit in the Farnesina

The more famous Loggia di Psiche e Amore is a Raphael invention although much of it was carried out in the harsher style of his follower Giulio Romano. The decorative festoons are by Giovanni da Udine. In these you can individuate exotic fruit and vegetables (you can buy an italian book on this at the entrance desk), and there is a very famous cucumber which is rudely juxtaposed with some circular fruit.

Upstairs there are two painted rooms currently visitable. Chigi’s bedroom has a remarkable fresco by il Sodoma representing the Marriage of Roxane and Alexander. A hallway with perspective games is by Baldassare Peruzzi. Various areas are still under restoration or closed for office use.

Terracotta Frieze on villa Farnesina

Located in Trastevere on via della Lungara number 270. Open Mon-Sat 9-13, cost 5 euro. See official website.

Further reading:

Construction: What is really most exciting about this space is the architectural construction. The Romans were the first civilization that were able to enclose vast interior spaces. Before the Romans, the size of buildings was limited by the technology available. Here, we have an enormous, unified room—no supports anywhere!—built in the second century. And the whole thing is topped by a very heavy concrete dome:
Width = 43.3 meters across (142 feet). This dome is as wide as half a football field, and that’s the largest span constructed until they build the Georgia Superdome… Really, nobody was ever able to build so big until the use of reinforced concrete in the 19th century. The dome weighs over 5000 tons which is equal to about 4000 adult elephants.

In Middle Ages, superstitious people refused to believe that the dome was built with the help of pagan demons… but actually, the Romans used not demons, but CONCRETE!! This is how they did it:

• The builders built a very effective foundation: They built two concentric RINGS OF BRICKS, and filled the space inside with concrete (which was made by mixing ground travertine marble and lime paste). This double ring prevented spread in settlement, because the ground here is swampy thanks to the proximity to the Tiber river.
• The thick walls, which support the dome, were also made of concrete, poured between brick supports. Different types of concrete were used on the way up – the higher parts were lighter by using volcanic tufa stone.
• The DOME is made the same way, with the lightest forms of concrete employed in a kind of WAFFLE construction to make it lighter.
• For LIGHT there is a circular OCCULUS, and 8 meter wide opening at the top, through which rainwater does flow. There are small drainage holes in the floor – look for them. (The polychrome marbe floor is original!)

We cannot see most of this buttressing and support, so the work just comes across as incredibly harmonious. This is helped by careful attention to proportions: the height and diameter are both 43.3 meters. This balanced, harmonious feel has captured the imagination of centuries of people. By the 15th century, it was being described as the most beautiful church in Rome. More recently in America, round buildings preceeded by temple fronts still signify spaces of great importance in education and government – for example, Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia library was modeled on the Pantheon, and is the centerpiece of his plan for modern universities, upon which many US campuses are founded. Many State Capitol buildings of the late 18th and 19thc centuries, including the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, also center around a portico and domed structure, expanded into practical use with wings.

Visitor information: Open all day, free.

Amongst the more quality items in the collection is the famous Barberini “Togato”, a standing male sculpture of the first century representing a patrician man holding the busts of his ancestors – reflective of contemporary practise and privilege of the patrician classes to have these items made. However, since it is in itself a white marble sculpture, to us there is not much differentiation between the “real” and the “sculpted”, so that it rather disconcertingly looks like this man is holding two severed heads. His own head was also severed; the one on this sculpture is not the original.

My photos show some of the most interesting sculptures juxtaposed with power plant machinery, such as the sign that says Franco Tosi (1933) with a greek maiden, and the dials from a 1930’s diesel motor here.

Lunch Suggestion: “Doppio Zeroo” wine bar, (via ostiense 68). A stylish but reasonably priced pizzeria/tavola calda/wine bar frequented by office workers (always a good sign).

On your way back to Piramide metro station, you can’t possibly miss the Piramide di Caio Cestio, a 27 metre high brick pyramid faced with white marble, and tucked into the city walls, which kinda takes away from the original effect.

Official website and opening hours at: www.centralemontemartini.org
Open Tuesday through Sunday (closed Monday), 9.00-19.00.

The fountain of the four rivers, 1648-51, by Bernini

It was a rainy morning in February but Bernini’s famous Fountain of the Four Rivers glinted in its clean marble glory. Finally it’s out from under restoration, where it’s been for two years. According to the folks at the Fountain Society, aside from the apparent cleaning, restorers have installed water filters to reduce calcium deposits, and a shock system to deter pigeons! This post will detail the history and visual aspects of the fountain.

Location and History
The large ovoid Piazza Navona sits on the footprint of the first century CE Stadium of Domitian. Pope Innocent X rebuilt the space in the mid seventeenth century to feature the Pamphilij family residence, the main church, S. Agnese in Agone by Borromini, and the three Bernini Fountains. All three are great examples of the Baroque style in art.

Bernini was a “Renaissance man” in Baroque times, capable of working in all media and revolutionizing every genre he touched, including fountains. The story goes that Pope Innocent X held a competition to build a fountain here. The main rule was that you had to use this obelisk, a Roman copy of an original Egyptian one; it was lying in the nearby Circus Maximus and the Pope wanted to reuse it in his piazza. Bernini was not invited to participate in the competition (at that moment he was a bit out of favour), so he made a model and had a friend sneak it into a room where the Pope was likely to see it. Indeed the Pope liked it and hired him, despite the extravagance of the project, and that it cost way more than the others.

Composition
The fountain is composed of a big rustic rock in the middle, topped by a granite obelisk. Its name “The Four Rivers”, comes from the four large male allegorical figures on the corners, who are river gods: Nile, Gange, Danube, Rio de la Plata. The idea is that these rivers represent the four corners of the known world at the time:

• DANUBE (europe): is closest to the papal palace, his hand reaches up to touch the coat of arms
• RIO della Plata (America): represented by an African, with coins on ledge (=riches)
• GANGES (Asia): just an old guy in a reclining position
• NILE (Africa). Has his head covered because they did not know where the source, or “head” of the river was!

Each of these figures is photographed and labelled below so you can identify them when you go in person. On the rock near each figure are various plants and animals associated with that region. At the top of the obelisk is a dove with a palm branch in his beak, made in bronze. This was one of the Pamphilij family’s symbols (it’s on the coat of arms photographed below), but in this context was also considered a reference to Noah and the Flood (in Genesis 8:11, Noah, who has been in the ark for over 40 days, sends out a dove to see if the waters had receeded, and the dove comes back with an olive or palm branch).

Meaning
On a first level, The reuse the Obelisk signifies Rome’s conquer of Egypt. Contemporaries read the egyptian markings on the Obelisk as symbols of the sun’s rays, and by extension, the triumph of Christianity. The Four rivers represent the Pope’s expression of the supposed universal influence of the Catholic Church. (In fact, Africa/Rio looks up at the obelisk and shades his eyes as if experiencing a miraculous conversion.) The Dove at the top is a symbol of both of Pope and of the Holy Spirit, acting as an effective reference to the Church.

Style
Baroque art is characterized primarily by theatricality and technical virtuosity. The theatrical part is not hard to see – check out the poses of the figures! These are not natural positions, but frozen movement. To prove this, just try to hold one of those positions yourself for a few minutes. As for technical virtuosity, Bernini deals with an amazing and totally unnecessary engineering challenge by putting a heavy granite obelisk over an empty space – the arch disguised by the form of the rock in the center of the composition. Furthermore, he works in multimedia, seamlessly combining granite, rough stone (which is really marble), polished marble, bronze, and water. The harmonious whole makes it look like it was easy.

Read more about Bernini and support arttrav by buying books from amazon.com: Bernini book search

Caravaggio's Madonna dei Pellegrini is in the church of Sant'Agostino

Caravaggio, whose real name was Michelangelo Merisi (1571-1610), was born in a small farming community near Milan. He trained in Milan under Simone Peterzano, and made waves in Rome in the early 1600s with his dramatic chiaroscuro (or tenebrism), stark naturalism, and sometimes shockingly violent subject matter.

In this post I list the BEST churches in Rome to visit Caravaggio paintings; I am only talking about those that can be visited in situ in Rome, rather than those available in museums like the Borghese. While museum lighting and display is great for close study of paintings, nothing beats seeing these works in their original location, as the artist intended, and as the Romans have seen them for centuries. There paintings were meant to stand their own in a chapel lit only by candles, so feel free to skip paying for lighting, and take the time for your eyes to adjust and your brain to take in their dramatic effect.

Chiesa di Sant’Agostino

Church of Sant'Agostino in Rome

(Piazza Sant’Agostino / via della Scrofa, Rome. Near Piazza Navona. Open 7.45-12; 16.30-19.30)

This church has a Renaissance facade of travertine marble and an interior rennovated in the 17th and again in the 18th centuries. It houses works by numerous important artists, including the high altar by Bernini, and a cult-figure of the Madonna del Parto by Jacopo Sansovino (1516) on the entrance wall.

The Madonna dei Pellegrini, painted by Caravaggio in 1609, was considered scandalous because the pilgrims, who come to pay tribute to the Madonna (who stands barefoot and humbly in her doorway), had the dirty feet of the real models that Caravaggio used, and this was not considered decorous. (Located in the left aisle, first chapel, see photo above.)

Raphael's prophet in the nave

On the third pillar on the north side of the nave, there is a lone prophet by Raphael, restored by Daniele da Volterra. It shows how much the artist was influenced by Michelangelo. The figure is powerful and is a definate reference to the Sistine Chapel ceiling, though the style is Raphael’s own – less sculptural and cold, and more graceful. The garland-bearing putti that flank the prophet stand in casual contrapposto; they charm us with boyish looks in a style that is typical of Raphael’s treatment of this motif.
(For more about this church, read this wiki.)

San Luigi dei Francesi: Contarelli Chapel

(Via Santa Giovanna d’Arco 5, Fri-Wed 8am-12:30pm and 3:30-7pm; Thurs 8am-12:30pm)

San Luigi dei Francesi is the church of the French community in Rome. It was begun in 1518 but work was interrupted, and only completed in 1589. The present aspect of the interior, and many of its fresco decorations, date to the 18th century.

Caravaggio in the Contarelli Chapel; photo by flickr user p_medved

Caravaggio executed three canvases for the French Cardinal Cointrel’s family chapel, located in the left aisle of this church. Over the altar is The Inspiration of Saint Matthew, on the left the Calling of Saint Matthew, and on the right the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew.

The Inspiration, also known as “St. Matthew and the Angel”, shows the saint writing in a large codex when he is surprised by an angel who swoops in from above. You can see his surprise not only in his face, but also by how the bench on which he was balancing his knee is practically toppling out of the picture plane, knocked over as the protagonist jumped up. This is the second version of this painting; the first version was rejected by the patrons as the angel was shown physically guiding the saint’s hand, rather than suggesting ideas by enumerating them on his fingers.

A dramatic three-dimensionality is achieved in these paintings by the artist’s practise of lighting his studio models from above with a harsh light in a dark room. The two paintings on the side walls are lit in a consistent manner that takes into consideration their display in the chapel and acts metaphorically to represent divine will.

Santa Maria del Popolo, Cerasi Chapel

Caravaggio in the Cerasi Chapel: The Crucifixion of Saint Peter

This chapel (at the far end of the church) houses The Crucifixion of Saint Peter and The Conversion of Saint Paul on the Way to Damascus by Caravaggio; the central panel that depicts the Assumption of the Virgin is by Annibale Caracci. Although you will see lots of people moving from one far side to the other in order to look at each canvas (which you can do to see details), it’s important to also look at the whole effect from a central point of view — even from the entrance step to the chapel, which is the point from which most viewers (except the patrons) would have seen a work in a closed private chapel. Stepping back, you can best admire Caravaggio’s innovative use of perspective and lighting that renders the images comprehensible even from an extreme angle.

Read more about Caravaggio in a book from Amazon.com

In the mid 1490’s some holes opened up in the ground of a park, and Renaissance artists, amongst the first of them Pinturricchio, crawled down into these “grottoes” and observed their colorful, unusual frescoes, which they named “grotesques”. These were the inspiration for the grotesques that cover so many square miles of ceiling and wall space in the Renaissance, and is particularly interesting to me since I am interested in studying Renaissance decorative complexes. Grotesques vary depending on the period (both in Roman and Renaissance times) but is characterized by an impossible, fantastic combination of creatures that titillated artistic minds.

The Domus Aurea is definately worth the visit for anyone interested in Renaissance art (not to mention Ancient Roman!), though for fullest appreciation it requires some preparation – it helps to know something about ancient wall painting, so you might consider reading up with this book: Robert Ling’s Roman Painting. As an instance of ancient architecture it is a bit confusing because it is a partial structure (remember one floor was destroyed) and also only partially excavated. Study the map, but don’t try to orient youreslf. As for the frescoes, you need to imagine what this would have been like for those who crawled through in the fifteenth century — the frescoes were brilliantly coloured in reds and orchres (having not been exposed to oxygen for 1450 years) and must have been like nothing ever seen before. The effect would have been amazingly colourful and sumptuous. Imagine the excitement! To get an idea of what these were like, there is an informative panel in colour at the entrance to the site. You should also go see the contemporary frescoes from the house of Livia at Palazzo Massimo.

The Domus Aurea has been undergoing restoration for many years. Sometimes it opens up for special visits, but often it is CLOSED due to flooding. At the moment (spring 2009) it is closed.

Information is only in italian and can be found on the official website of the soprintendenza. When open you can purchase your reservation through this official website.

There is a little italian audioguide with some images here.

Ancient Rome
Medieval Rome
Renaissance Rome
Baroque Rome

NB: although these posts are back-dated to their original date of writing (October 2004), I’ve updated them and checked opening hours and links (August 2008).

Tip! To best prepare for a trip to Rome, we suggest combining a texbook on Rome by Andrea Augenti (that is conveniently arranged in chronological order) with the tourist information available in the Blue Guide to Rome. You may also want to read up on artists or buildings that interest you most. Reading suggestions are provided throughout and also in the general reading list.

Plan of Sant'Andrea

Bernini’s Sant’andrea al Quirinale
Bernini designed this oval church so that future generations of photographers would have a really hard time. But seriously folks… This odd church was comissioned to Bernini from Camillo Pamphilj though by request of the Pope, built to accomodate the novices of the Society of Jesus, 1658-40. It has an unusual oval plan that is disposed sideways so that it is impossible to photograph the interior, though i suppose contemporaries would simply have struggled with the fact that they had to look “both ways” to take it in. I was always under the impression that Bernini’s work preceeded Borromini’s, so i went here first. However, I’m wrong — they were contemporaries and rivals, and their work makes an interesting comparison. The walls are covered in pink marble, and light, rather than filling the entire space, comes in drammatically through windows in each of the four chapels and four confessional spaces as well as above the high altar and from the main lantern. There is judicious use of pudgy baby angels, who make their way up right into the lantern, where there is a ring of golden cherubim.

Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane
Borromini was Bernini’s great rival and his work has been labelled “Anti-Baroque”. In fact it is very different from other architecture of this period, because it depends on the interest of forms rather than colour and decoration.

The exterior of this church is best seen from the opposite corner on Via delle Quattro Fontane; this intersection is marked with four reclining male figure fountains and, of the four long roads that can be seen in each direction from here, three of them are punctuated with obelisks at the end and the other in Porta Pia. The exterior shapes fit what I’ve always learned about the Baroque, namely the interplay of convex and concave surfaces that makes for a wavy effect, full of motion.

The small oval interior of this church dates to 1638-41. It is very white and makes for an interesting light-filled comparison to the Bernini church listed above. It is easier to take in this space in one glance (or one photographic lens)

Open: 9.30-12.30; 16-18 closed saturday pm

Borromini’s S. Ivo alla Sapienza, corso Rinasimentale, in the courtyard of the university
The University called “la Sapienza” was the first lay university in Rome, founded (I believe) in the early 14th century. It was only in the 17th c that the Pope at the time suggested a chapel be built for the students. Borromini (1642-48) was given the difficult task of building within a restricted and already delimited space. He already had experience with this at the church of Quattro Fontane, so perhaps this is why he was the man for the job.

Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza

The convex facade inside the courtyard, and the drum rising above it do not at all reflect what is going on inside. The drum is in fact a supporting shell for the internal dome. Once inside you are struck by the sensation of whiteness, of light, and of the musicality involved in the play of convex and concave surfaces, as if an orchestra director had waved the walls into place. The seemingly weighless dome, with defiant windows at the base from which it should spring, is set directly above the supporting pilasters without the intervention of a drum. (This is possible because of the drum we saw from the oustide!)

In contrast to Bernini or to most art we’re used to, there is no obviously apparent iconographical scheme. That’s cuz it’s all missing now. Twelve niches contained statues of the twelve apostles by a different artist, but these were soon deemed insufficient and removed. In the dome, the brass plate we now see previously held a relief of the Holy Spirit, which recently fell off. The meaning was the holy spirit descending on the apostles, the episode in which they speak in tongues. From the outside of the church, the spiral on the lantern (the very top part above the dome) refers also to the tower of Babel. Rather appropriate for a great university.

The church of The Gesu’
The principle Gesuit church in Rome was built 1568-75, and is team-work between Vignola and Della Porta. The fabulous multi-media ceiling is what really inspired me about this church. Commenced in 1672 by Gaulli, it depicts the triumph of the name of Jesus, written YHU in a burst of light at the centre. What’s amazing is the use of different media here; the fresco tumbles out of its frame and onto wooden (?) supports, and it seems that the stucco angels are trying to push the figures back in. It seems high time that someone write a new book on this church. The only monograph i can find is this one from 1952: Il Gesù di Roma by Pio Pecchiai.

The Mausoleum of Santa Costantia

Exterior of Santa Costantia

Built by Costantia, the daughter of Constantine, in 337-54. Her big porphyry sarcophagus, now in the Vatican museums, was located in a niche here and is now replaced by an ugly copy. The circular building has a donut of mosaics with a distinctly pagan character. They are decorative rather than figurative, alternating geometric with vine motifs populated by elongated and somewhat awkward putti. The two bays closest to Constantia’s sarcophagus are more detailed, with exotic animals, mirrors, and a greater use of coloured tesserae.

vault mosaic

My guidebook wrongly said that this was open monday morning, so i was sadly surprised to find it closed. I stopped by the parish office to chat up the priest, never asking him directly to open it… and he just offered to unlock it and asked me to close it when i left. He said there had been theives so they didn’t leave it open any more – how sad. It was fabulous to have the mausoleum mostly to myself (i let in a few german tourists), though i suspect that it is never all that crowded because it’s pretty far off the beaten track. It is however worth the trip (which is not that arduous because the express bus is very… express) to see how these very early christian mosaics retain pagan motifs and style but take on christian function.

Located in the modern residential area of Nomentana – take the express bus #60 to get there.

San Clemente mosaic vault over altar

While this church’s present architectural form dates to 1108, there are two lower levels dating from the 9th and 1st centuries! First you can admire the rather coherant medieval whole of this basilican plan church, with a fabulous Cosmatesque floor (=inlaid marble work) and choir area, and a resplendant mosaic representing christ as the tree of life. Look closely or with binoculars and you will see some very cute animals at the bottom of this tree.

Through the sacristy on the right you can enter the lower churches. The first level below ground contains some 9th century frescoes though you can’t see much due to restoration and condition. Try to orient yourself so that you can take in the basilican plan that was already present at this level.

It is then possible to go down a further level, into a series of Roman spaces (unclear if these were domestic spaces?). Here it is easy to get lost and not of any particular artistic note.

Located near the Colosseum, open 9-12:30 and 15-18, there is an entrance fee for the lower church.

Church of Santa Prassede view to high altar

My textbook, because of an amusing but grave grammatical error, implies that Santa Prassede was killed with a sponge, which of course is not true, but now I’ll never forget it. The statue in the photo shows her with the blood-soaked sponge with which she wiped up the blood of other martyrs before becoming one herself.

Entry to this church is through an unassuming side entrance flanked as usual by beggars. As usual, i walked to the far end of the nave to get a complete look. The apse and triumphal arch are covered in very fine 9th century mosaics, while the chapel of St. Zenone, on the right, is slightly later (the detail photo shows the largish tesserae in this chapel). The mosaics are worth looking at with binoculars.

mosaic vault in santa prassede

Open regular church hours, free.

For further information: there is a scholarly discussion of this church in this book:
Rome 1300: on the path of the pilgrim

There is a medieval cloister with Cosmatesque twisted columns inlaid with mosaics (entry 2 euros) at the side of this church.

UPDATE Spring 2009: This page is now out of date. Please see individual posts in the Rome section.

Nero’s Domus Aurea

In AD 64-68, the nasty dictatorial Emperor Nero built himself this pleasure palace on the ruins of the city he burned down. Nice guy! He employed the architect Severus and the painter Fabullus. The huge expanse of connected vaulted chambers that is now underground was the ground level of the palace; a second level was destroyed by subsequent emperors. Nero’s private artifical lake was removed to make way for the nearby Colosseum. The lower level was filled by sand and used as the foundation for a subsequent palace.

In the mid 1490’s some holes opened up in the ground of a park, and Renaissance artists, amongst the first of them Pinturricchio, crawled down into these “grottoes” and observed their colorful, unusual frescoes, which they named “grotesques”. These were the inspiration for the grotesques that cover so many square miles of ceiling and wall space in the Renaissance, and is particularly interesting to me since I study decorative complexes. Grotesques vary depending on the period (both in Roman and Renaissance times) but is characterized by an impossible, fantastic combination of creatures that titillated artistic minds.

The Domus Aurea is definately worth the visit for anyone interested in Renaissance art (not to mention Ancient Roman!), though for fullest appreciation it requires some preparation – it helps to know something about ancient wall painting, so you might consider reading up with this book: Robert Ling’s Roman Painting. As an instance of ancient architecture it is a bit confusing because it is a partial structure (remember one floor was destroyed) and also only partially excavated. Study the map, but don’t try to orient youreslf. As for the frescoes, you need to imagine what this would have been like for those who crawled through in the fifteenth century — the frescoes were brilliantly coloured in reds and orchres (having not been exposed to oxygen for 1450 years) and must have been like nothing ever seen before. The effect would have been amazingly colourful and sumptuous. Imagine the excitement! To get an idea of what these were like, there is an informative panel in colour at the entrance to the site. You should also go see the contemporary frescoes from the house of Livia at Palazzo Massimo.

The domus aurea is currently a restoration site but is open for viewing upon reservation. Information can be found on the official website of the soprintendenza. In case you don’t want to slog through that italian, you can purchase your reservation through this official website.

Started 27-25 BC; The first building was comissioned by Agrippa, Augustus’ son, but it and a few subsequent versions burned down. The present version, built by Hadrian ca 118-28, has an inscription that commemorates the founding patron rather than himself. I approached the building and its accompanying hoarde of tourists from behind, where the shift in ground level is particularly apparent.
The huge, heavy semi-spherical dome does not seem so heavy because the building is so well balanced – in fact, it is the same height and width (43.3 metres). When one considers that the opening at its centre is 9m wide, this dome is massive, and a true feat of engineering that dazzled renaissance architects and modern-day tourists alike. It’s even bigger than Michelangelo’s dome at St. Peter’s. The side chapels contain an unfortunate mish mash of 14th through 19th century objects.

Building open all day, entrance free!

Many busses and trams stop at Largo Argentina, in the middle of which is an archaeological area that was discovered during ‘renovations’ in 1926. The photo shows a cat licking itself with the backdrop of the ruins of Temple “A”. There is a cat sanctuary at one end of the archaeological site; you can visit the poor abandoned cats in the shelter during morning hours, though it’s rather smelly. The cats have the run of the temples, whereas we do not, so they (the cats AND the temples) can only be photographed from street level. Oh yeah, you want to know about the temples? Well, the four structures, imaginatively named A, B, C and D because not enough is known about their dedications, are a rare example of Republican architecture, ranging from the end of the 4th century BC to the end of the 2nd C BC.

This museum contains some of the highest quality Roman art brought to light by 19th and 20th century excavations. The biggest highlights are the frescoes and mosaics displayed on the second floor, for which you are given a specific entry time. The detached frescoes from the private apartments of Augustus’ wife are a wonderful example of second pompeian style. On the first floor, good bilingual wall text leads you through sculpture arranged by theme. If you can read italian, there is an initiative directed at children that is informative and perceptive. It tells really fun stories in the first person about some of the more important works.Unfortunately, the visit to the second floor is compulsorily by guided tour, and you are given only 40 minutes to see it all. As you can imagine, in this time you SEE nothing, you only barely have time to glance. The tour guide is surely knowledgeable but only has time for the most basic of information, given first in quick italian and then in incomprehensibly accented but strangely fluent english. There are superb wall texts, if only you had time to read them.

This electrical plant, the first in Rome and built 1912, has been converted recently (1997) into a secondary museum space for the Capitoline Museum collections of sculpture during the main site’s rennovation.I admit, I was skeptical about this museum – I thought it would house “leftovers”. I was very pleasantly surprised and would recommend this to any interested tourists or scholars, especially fans of Ancient art. Not many people make it out here but it is worth it, and not really as out of the way as it seems. The power plant has been beautifully restored and interesting elements have been recuperated and duly labelled, providing for fascinating juxtapositions of the modern (all dark metal) and the ancient sculpture, usually not all that fun to look at in white rooms. If anything you’re bound to get good photos.

Amongst the more quality items in the collection is the famous Barberini “Togato”, a standing male sculpture of the first century representing a patrician man holding the busts of his ancestors – reflective of contemporary practise and privilege of the patrician classes to have these items made. However, since it is in itself a white marble sculpture, to us there is not much differentiation between the “real” and the “sculpted”, so that it rather disconcertingly looks like this man is holding two severed heads. His own head was also severed; the one on this sculpture is not the original.

My photos show some of the most interesting sculptures juxtaposed with power plant machinery: (1) Tosi (1933) and greek maiden; (2) the man with three heads described above; (3) the dials from a 1930’s diesel motor and (4) the handles; (5) a 1950’s furnace and, ironically, a Roman altar.

Lunch Suggestion: “Doppio Zeroo” wine bar, (via ostiense 68). A stylish but reasonably priced pizzeria/tavola calda/wine bar frequented by office workers (always a good sign).

On your way back to Piramide metro station, you can’t possibly miss the Piramide di Caio Cestio, a 27 metre high brick pyramid faced with white marble, and tucked into the city walls, which kinda takes away from the original effect.

Official website and opening hours at: www.centralemontemartini.org

Suggested reading:
An excellent general introduction to Renaissance Italy is Radke and Paoletti’s textbook, Art in Renaissance Italy, which is organized by city rather than strictly chronologically. One of the most readable and intelligent books on Renaissance art just in Rome is Loren Partridge’s Art of Renaissance Rome. For some advanced reading about the period in Rome and Florence after the death of Rapahel, try
Marcia Hall’s book “After Raphael”.

Church of Santa Maria del Popolo

Piazza del Popolo

Piazza del Popolo is home to three churches. At one end of the piazza, beyond an obelisk, are twin Baroque churches. To the left from this view and up a flight of stairs you access the church of Santa Maria del Popolo.

This church contained no fewer than five chapels plus the choir vault by Pinturicchio, though not all of these remain intact.

The two chapels (right aisle) for members of the Della Rovere family were painted by PINTORICCHIO in 1488-90 (Della Rovere Chapel) and 1504-7 (Basso della Rovere Chapel, 3) (the latter having much “school” contribution) and are in good state of preservation. These chapels show some of the first antiquizing grotesque work in the city. This includes the white and gold stucco work that can be seen around the altarpieces in both chapels; of particular interest is the gold-ground, colourful candelabra motif grotesquerie in the pilasters and window jambs of the Della Rovere chapel. Also note the delicate marble ballustrade decorated with family-shield-holding winged putti; I could not find this information written anywhere but would bet a small amount of money that this is original to the chapel. The wall tombs are also very fine and approximately contemporary. Each item is labelled on a sign in front of the chapel.

The Chigi chapel was designed by Raphael to be a harmony of all media. It didn’t quite succeed (although the plans, preserved in drawings, are very interesting), partly because Raphael died in the midst of it all, and his patron only three days later. The present work is not much like the plan, perhaps because of the alterations by Bernini, who was of a very different mind.

Also of note in this church are two in-situ Caravaggio canvases (see baroque rome). Open daily 7-12, 16-19.

Raphael's prophet

This church houses just one lonely prophet by Raphael (on the third pillar on the north side, restored by Daniele da Volterra). It shows how much the artist was influenced by Michelangelo. The figure is powerful and is a definate reference to the Sistine Chapel ceiling, though the style is Raphael’s own – less sculptural and cold, and more graceful. The garland-bearing putti that flank the prophet stand in casual contrapposto; they charm us with boyish looks in a style that is typical of Raphael’s treatment of this motif. 

 For the Caravaggio paintings in the same church see baroque rome. Open 7.45-12; 16.30-19.30, near piazza Navona. 

This church is one of the most important manifestations of Roman Mannerism in the period after the death of Raphael. The apsidal section of the church is divided by an iron gate which remains closed in the mornings. In this way you get the view that the laity had for almost two thousand years of Christianity. If you’d prefer to actually see the frescoes in the latter half of the church, in the afternoons, if it’s not raining (!), the caretaker opens the gate. He is vigilant about talking and touching, and will tell you so in French.The church is composed of a number of deep side chapels and two more important transept chapels. The left transept (Pucci chapel, photo) was frescoed by Perino del Vaga (1523-7) and finished by Taddeo and Federico Zuccari (after 1566). Perino’s are the vault and the lunette on the far wall, which show strong Raphael influence — note the composition of the Visitation scene which looks a lot like Raphael’s School of Athens.

Daniele da Volterra painted the Orsini chapel (R3, 1541-8) though the only part remaining of his contribution is the altar wall fresco of the Assumption of the Virgin. Another interesting chapel is the Guerrieri chapel (R6), by an unknown artist from the school of Perugino, who painted a lovely grisaille frieze of the Passion.

Located at the top of the Spanish Steps.

Lippi's Caraffa chapel

Santa Maria Sopra Minerva: The Carafa Chapel

The Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva is worth a visit in a general sense, though I was disappointed to learn that the beautiful painted vault and decorative elements are nineteenth-century.

The Carafa Chapel by Filippino Lippi is contemporary to his work on the Strozzi chapel in Santa Maria Novella in Florence.

Located in the south transept, frescoes were begun in 1489. 

The late 15th-century church was built over top of an earlier one. It was home to Raphael’s Transfiguration (Vatican) over the high altar until the early 19th c. It contains an altarpiece by Antoniazzo Romano, a sculpture by Bernini and some important late Mannerist works.
Marcia Hall suggests that the Del Monte chapel by Vasari and Ammananti is the first counter-reformation work in Rome (except for Michelangelo’s Pauline Chapel in the Vatican; p. 174).

Bramante's Tempietto

The tiny, perfect, and beautiful Tempietto by Bramante is accessed through a door at the right of the church (when open) or viewed through a gate outside to the right. The building is actually in the courtyard of the Spanish Academy.

The church was built on the spot where Peter was thought to have been martyred and it represents one of the only executed plans for a circular church in the Renaissance, despite many artists’ obsession with this form. The interior is luminous and, of course, tiny. Bernini designed the crypt into which you can see via stairs at the back.

Location: via garibaldi, trastevere (very much uphill, but worth the hike). Open7.30-12; 16-18. The Tempietto is generally acessible during these hours, closed monday. The entrance gates are to the right of the church. The door to the Tempietto itself is rarely open.

Palazzo Barberini (Galleria Nazionale)

This museum houses the patrician family collection of the Barberini. The Barberini family’s collection began in the 17th century but was much enriched in the 1950’s and 1970’s as well. The rooms themselves have frescoed ceilings of some note.

The collection houses a number of gems. The most famous work is Raphael’s “Fornarina”, said to be his lover, though I didn’t find her all that enigmatic – I was distracted by her very tweezed eyebrows and kinda icy expression.

My favourite work here is a “Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine” by Lorenzo Lotto. Signed and dated 1524 and executed in Bergamo, this sacra conversazione combines all sorts of influences including Durer. The event is witnessed by a number of other saints who show these influences in a mish-mash kinda way: Saint Jerome recalls Lotto’s other paintings of this subject while his quizzical looking lion looks pretty Dureresque (I’m thinking of a print he did of this saint in his study); the warrior saint George recalls local (Bergamasque) influences, while the young saint Sebastian is very Georgionesque. Saint Catherine herself is all Lotto – be sure to get a good look at the details in her clothing and jewellery.

There is a work ca 1555 by Titian, the “Venus and Adonis”, of which there are multiple versions (Prado, Madrid; Washington, National Gallery; NY Met). Venus falls in love with Adonis because of a stray arrow sent out by Cupid who slumbers clumsily in the background. Venus, voluptuous and from behind, seeks to detain Adonis from going off to his fate of being killed by a wild boar, while the male god, wearing a jaunty magenta hat, coat and matching lipstick, looks perplexed and like he’d rather go hunt.

Be sure to check out the two works by Filippo Lippi, hailed as masterpieces by the gallery, and the three Caravaggio’s.

The Galleria Borghese hardly needs an introduction, but here is my impression (as of October 2004).

This gallery houses what remains of a mostly seventeenth century collection by the Borghese family. It includes a lot of forced purchases that Cardinal Scipione Borghese made based on his powerful position, though unfortunately does NOT include a few hundred pieces that were sold to Napoleon. Known already by contemporaries for its interesting mix of ancient and contemporary art, it is today an eclectic collection with a few surprising masterpieces. Word has it that the audio guide is pretty good, though I used the lovely laminated “informative placemats” available in each room. These describe both the 18th/19th century fresco decoration in the villa and the paintings on the walls. It’s a little less detailed about Ancient sculpture, but in general the information is at a high level. The English is of varied but generally high quality.

The Galleria Borghese is delightful. It’s too bad i had to share it with 359 other people. For tickets, you must reserve on the internet or phone ahead, pick up your ticket downstairs in crowded area, check any bags and umbrellas, and then go upstairs to the ground floor museum for your assigned entry time… You are given only 2 hours in the villa after which an electronic voice announces, in four languages all of which sound like italian, that you must leave. This is enforced by mean guards who sweep through and kick you out without exception (i even heard a lady complaining that she had lost her child, but the guard said she’d find the kid outside eventually). The two hours is not exactly enough time to see everything properly, and i missed out on three rooms.

The room I found most exciting was #20, one of the last in the pinacoteca (picture gallery) on the “first floor” (second by american standards). In there with Titian’s beautifully polished “Sacred and Profane Love” is one Venetian “provincial” surprise after the next, including a precious Antonello da Messina, a late Titian, a Tintoretto, a powerful Pordenone, and one of my favourite “sacre conversazioni” by Lorenzo Lotto, with a very animated Christ Child who wears a white dress and tries to struggle out of Mary’s arms. This altarpiece is just tiny and in a very elaborate original (?) frame. Elsewhere in the gallery I appreciated 3 fabulous paintings by Dosso Dossi and a very interesting family portrait by Bernardo Luni. I didn’t think i’d like the Bernini sculptures (for which the gallery is most famous) that much, though i must admit that the Apollo and Daphne is truly a masterpiece. The sculpting is so light and fine, especially where her hair turns into leaves.

Directions: most people and guide books say you must walk a long distance from Spagna metro. To avoid this, take bus #910 from Termini, 5 stops. It runs frequently and the stop is at the end of the little Viale dell’Uccelliera upon which is located the gallery. AFTER visting the gallery you might choose to take a walk in the park, but at least by taking the bus you don’t get tired before seeing the good stuff! Booking is required via ticketeria.

 This has got to be the most exciting of the small patrician museums in the city, with sixteenth and seventeenth century paintings and some reconstructed Ancient sculpture. Part of the fun is that it is open only saturday morning, so you feel very informed and exclusive just by going there! Entrance is rather dear (about 7 euros) but this includes a guided tour in English or Italian given by an extremely knowledgeable fast-talking professor.

The rooms of the gallery themselves are of note, with impressive frescoes dated 1700 on the cieilings depicting the triumphs of Alexander Colonna. The walls are hung frame-to-frame in a disposition that reflects the way they looked in the seventeenth century. To fill holes in the collection left by works comandeered by Napoleon, they had painted mirrors made by Carlo Maratta and Mario dei Fiori that are quite spectacular. In the first part of the main hall are the highlights of the collection, four reclining female nudes, one by Bronzino and three by Michele di Ridolfo di Ghirlandaio, who were recently cleaned of their prudish drapery to reveal nude spendour and bright mannerist colours. It’s fun to play connoisseur in this collection, to see if you can attribute works at least to schools (Venetian, Bolognese, Roman) and perhaps to major artists you know, or more minor ones whose names you might keep seeing in these smaller galleries. There is a remarkable portrait of a peasant eating beans by Annibale Carracci, a portrait attributed to Lorenzo Lotto (but it just doesn’t have his force), a Tintoretto, some Guido Reni, Veronese, Vivirarini…

Open Saturday 9-13, 7 euros admission. See official website.