Field Studies are the Most Exhausting Slices of Heaven

11. Ho bisogno un campione

Nico is back! Last night Nico, Claudio, and Isotta came over to relax and hang out. Claudio went to a graduation party and Nico and Isotta brought take away pizza for dinner!! More fabulous delicious pizza! I'm never eating Vocelli's again. We had a fun apartment/girls night at dinner. Afterwards everyone headed out to the  clubs except for Kat, Ginny, and I. Ginny had just gotten home from a full day of classes and stayed home to check in with the parentals while Kat and I hoofed it to Prati for a quiet movie night with Mattly, Tom, and Pepperoni. Nothing too thrilling, just some KungFu Panda and home cause we were both tired.

Thursday morning I had to wake up just a touch earlier than usual to allow enough time to get to my Conservation field study. I rolled out of bed to find Ginny dressed and heading out the door already!! She chose to walk while I planned on taking the bus to Santa Maria Maggiore, our meeting point [fyi it's the tallest point in Rome and a good 45 min walk from our apartment]. I felt accomplished when I met up with Ginny at the church at 9:32 (meeting time was 9:30, that's close!) having figured out the busing situation by myself. Eventually we find 4 other girls from our class wandering around S.Maria Mag. but none of us can find our teacher! We called Federica and she came to meet us, she was just making sure the church we wanted to go to was open and not under restoration or anything. I had forgotten that because this destination was so far away from everyone she gave us a 30 min grace period, our meeting time was pushed back to 10. So I was even early!! We eventually become a group of 8 but I think we were missing 5 or so people from our class. Poor Ginny stepped on a broken beer bottle while waiting for everyone and got a minor but painful cut on her foot.

Finally, Basilica Santa Prassede, this hidden treasure right next to one of the most famous churches in Rome. The apse and arches of this church is overwhelmingly brilliant! The mosaics are from the 9th century, not very naturalistic but mosaics tend to be rather linear. The colors are so vibrant! While our teacher was explaining the processes of making the tessere and applying them to the surfaces I just stared. Thankfully I know most of the information already (parents, don't worry, I'm not failing) and I could just sit admiring the beauty.

The mosaics

The altar

Basilica Santa Prassede

After examining the altar we went to a specific chapel that has more fabulous mosaics with lots of gold tessere. The artist used the space so well because the angels/apostles are placed on the pendentives so as their body is depicted on the ceiling it looks like they get bigger or taller as they reach the center where there is a depiction of Christ. I feel like I keep repeating myself but I'm running out of words to describe all the awe-some inspiring beautiful creations I get to see everyday. Besides the breathtaking mosaics yesterday I fell   in love with marble floors.... they do NOT get enough credit! Sadly the marble is mostly spolie from Roman or Greek buildings that were torn down to be replaced with Christian churches, but prepare yourself for lots of floor pictures.

Above the entrance to the chapel

These popes were restored and so they look a little
flatter and nicer than the original

Ceiling

Angels on the pendentives

My attempt at a close up shot of the mosaic

This chapel is also where a relic is housed. It's a column said to be the one that Jesus was tied to while he was being whipped during the passion of Christ. It's an interesting possibility if that's true! There were fantastic frescoes all over the church below the clerestory and on every wall that wasn't already decorated.

Fresco showing the column

My professor obviously is well educated in the field of conservation, and in fact that's her profession while she teaches us on the side! So while at the church she basically pointed out all the flaws of poor restoring or how the art is breaking down due to age and the environment. We learned that to determine the severity of a frescoes damage, when the paint is peeling away, you have to knock on it like trying to find a secret door! She said nothing works the same as a human hand, there is no tool to knock with, so at the end of the day her knuckles are raw but she has a sense of satisfaction because she has resolved the problems.

Federica knocking on a random fresco
in a church!

 We made a pit stop in yet another chapel to examine an oil wall painting that is in very good condition. Normally wall paintings that are well preserved tend to be frescoes. That has to do with the types of chemical reactions that form or break over time and the compositions of the binders... Orgo with Kerri Lee is really helping me out in this class. I just thought this painting was well done and the realism of Jesus' hand and the tears on Mary's face blew my mind! I don't understand how the artist managed to paint something that is clear

It was a great field study to say the least. Each field study class is two hours long and normally Federica likes to visit multiple locations. I enjoyed this change of only one church because there was so much to see and she went so in depth with her descriptions and information. The best part however was that at the end of this all it was only 11:30!!! I had another field study to go to Forum Boarium! Ginny, Madison, and I grabbed some pizza between the two field studies and then met up with Gianni for Forma Urbis. We explored the area along the river banks at the Southern end of Campus Martius.

On the left is the ruins of an ancient roman Temple of Apollo,
behind that is a brown medieval house, next door
is a renaissance house, and on the right
a baroque church.... awesome.

Ginny at the Theatre of Marcellus

Mussolini saved the theatre from collapse
but added these fasces, bundles of sticks with
an axe in the middle. Origin of the words fascism and faggot

Theater Marcellus

We visited the Theatre of Marcellus which is built similar to the Colosseum with Doric columns on the bottom arcade, Ionic on the next level, and Corinthian which has fallen off the top level. Gianni, my teacher, has actually helped in the excavation of the depot inside the theater today. On top in the middle ages someone built a home that would be easily defensible, and now it's an apartment building, on top of this treasured Roman ruin. I think that would be a pretty cool place to live. It was a hot hot day and thankfully Gianni was stopping in the shade whenever he had something long to say. Next we walked over to San Nicola in Carcere (meaning St. Nicholas in Prison) which was built over one of three temples lined up near the theater. There were two Ionic (probably Temple of Spes and Juno respectively) and then a little Doric one tacked on where there is now a busy intersection (Juno Sospita)!! So strange to think cars are driving over the same location that a few thousand years ago people came to worship! This part of Rome in particular was very swampy before the Cloaca Maxima was built to drain out all extra water into the Tiber. The flooding used to be so bad that the reason the fountain at the bottom of the Spanish Steps is in the shape of a boat is because a boat floated up there and when the water receded was stranded! That's not close to the Tiber! Anyways back to St. Nick in Prison! We went inside because they saved some of the columns from the original temples and built walls around them so they look like engaged columns in the church. Also this church has zero matching columns along the nave because they were all stolen from Roman temples and they are mismatched with stolen capitals too. A cool collection but again, sad :(    First thing I noticed when I went inside were not the columns but rather the ceiling.

SO BLUE!

The church has some serious Baroque overtones haha but this ceiling is my favorite so far!!! The blue ties it all together so it's not as overwhelming as the gilding swirly-dirly overload of some other ceilings. *sigh*  I love it.

Gianni gets just as easily distracted as we do. He has studied marble and quarries in depth, like more than is healthy for any human I believe. But this is useful because he knows so much!! So with the eclectic mix of columns he was teaching us about different carving techniques and the pros and cons of using each type. 

My first glimpse of alabaster

After our little detour we got back to the lesson plan and visited the Temple of Portunus, the god of the port. Last semesters classes couldn't see it because it has been under restoration and cleaning for a while. Sadly the plaster and marble dust is hardly visible, but the structure is so cute! It's trying so hard to pretend to look Greek-ish when it's clearly Roman in every way. If you've studied the differences between Roman and Greek temples you can see the high podium, single entry point, and engaged columns that scream Roman!! Along with no marble but only local Roman stone used. It's just so cute how they tried to look Greek.

Looking a little shabby after 2086 years

Picture from the back

Right next door, like from where that picture was taken, is the Temple of Hercules. It is believed an olive oil vendor dedicated this tholos temple. It was of course preserved because it was turned into a Christian church for a while, and is now restored to the best of our abilities to it's original structure. 

Large capital

Temple of Hercules

Last stop was the Santa Maria in Cosmedin, anyone recognize this name?? It's where la Bocca della Verita is located!! Of course we didnt' get in the huge line to pay precious euro to stick our hand in the mouth of a sewer grate, oh yes Gianni told us it was a grate to the cloaca maxima. So we walked past la Bocca della Verita and into the church, which by the way, follows the knees/shoulders codes the strictest out of any I've been to yet (ok well less than St. Peter's). Thankfully my first field study at a church meant I was prepared unlike some of my classmates who had to don ugly plaid scarves. There were more awesome columns to inspect here, again stolen from all over Rome. We were really looking at the Basilica layout of the church which Sturd drummed into my head back in sophomore year of high school. I felt bad because many of the kids in my class are taking a very similar class called Roman as a Living Museum. Poor Hope and Pepperoni had been to this church literally the day before. Oh well, they just get to overdose on Roma!  Ok here come the floor pictures!!! 

In the Basilica Santa Prassede

Prassede

Santa Maria in Cosmedin

Obsessed

Gianni doing his marble thing yet again!!

By the end of these two trips I was exhausted and it was only 2pm!! I came home to grab a snack and nap/study. Italian at 4:30 was a quiz which I think went well, not my best work but I think I'll be happy with my grade. After the quiz I stopped by Filippo's on the way home because it was my "bread night". We decided that since we all love eating bread with dinner each night of the week someone would buy the half loaf or whatever for the apartment. This way Mon-Friday we all can have bread with dinner and left overs with lunch or for a snack. Thursdays are going to tired me out but I'll perk up when I grab some of that delicious bread! 

After dinner I was wiped out. This cold is still bugging me!! So Tom and Sara and Michael came over to make plans to go out and see Nico at work! I really wanted to go to her wine/dessert bar with them because it's so small she's normally the only person there. I really wasn't feeling like that was a good idea so I just climbed into bed once everyone had left and fell asleep after a quick episode of HIMYM. Apparently it was a  lot of fun and the wine and desserts were fantastic, I'll have to go back. We want to try the aparativi there too, where you pay a set amount for a drink and get lots of snacks/munchies with your order.

This morning Ginny and I woke up earlier than the rest because we didn't go out. So we headed back to the market in Prati which I am starting to love. I got all my veggies for the week, sausage, and eggs for 8 euro! Much much cheaper than the supermarkets, but we do have to haul everything back across the bridge home. It's about 20-30 minute walk but since we get back around 1 every time it's hot hot hot outside. I love spending my Friday mornings like this because then I am out and about, moving around instead of lazing on the couch, and I come home with yummy new foods just in time for lunch! Then I've spent the rest of today doing homework, writing THIS!, napping, laundry, skyping.... just a relaxing day.

I think tonight we might go to a pizza/cheese tasting fair in a park, and maybe a discoteca/social center type place with Nico if she can get off of work. I might call it quits after the park, there is music later in park too so it'll be a while.  ok this took a long time to write and upload all the pictures for the blog. More later kiddos!