Rome is Where the Heart is: Thursdays Might be the Death of Me

Whew! What a day! Thank God my week ends on Thursday because I legitimately can't go on. I am mental and physically pooped. I started my morning with a hike up the Geniculum to see San Pietro in Montorio with my Conservation class. Ginny and I were on the ball and arrived early enough to poke our heads in the Spanish Academy courtyard where Bramante's Tempietto is located. The Tempietto (small temple) is supposedly built over the exact sight where Saint Peter was crucified. In the crypt there is a cover over the hole in the ground where the crucifix was planted. While this is a temple it was built for Christians and the figures inside are St. Peter and the four evangelists. It was beautiful and I was glad we were early and could check it out. It's free, it's simple, it's significant (lead to Bramante's work on St. Peter's) and if you visit Rome take the time to see this!

Tempietto

The Christian frieze

This is a video, I'm not sure if it will play

For the class itself we actually went to San Pietro in Montorio to examine the state of disrepair of many different types of art (sculpture, wood, marble, slate, canvas, etc). Thankfully the church also has a chapel designed and created by Bernini!!! My one true love! Pictures to follow. We looked at a chapel that has a fresco and an oil on wall painting together and compared their disrepair. We looked at two paintings made on wood panels and one on slate! Very rare and unusual to see slate used as a support. Sadly the church isn't very well preserved nor cleaned often. There were bird droppings and dust in many places. Bernini's chapel even had a plastic coffee cup left behind on the sarcophagus. So sad.

I really liked the giallo marble and putti

Detail of -->

Bernini's Chapel for St. Francis!

Typical Bernini making a balcony

Detail in chapel

After a quick stroll to the fountain we will examine more closely later in the semester (and yes Federica worked on restoring that too) we were dismissed. Ginny, Madison, and I had to book it because we only had 45 minutes to cross the majority of the city. We walked down and caught a bus to Piazza Venezia and found a quick bar for a panino before meeting our class at the Column of Trajan. Because our professor, Gianni, has spent a lot of time working in the Fori Imperiali (Imperial Forums) we were allowed into the closed off areas of the fori to explore! This is a BIG deal. The Imperial Forums were built right up next to the Roman Forum because Rome's population had grown so much they needed a new forum and another and another. Each emperor got to had his name all over the new forum and dedicate it to his favorite god or goddess. Julius Caesar added the first one which is dedicated to Venus Geniux, his ancestor. Then Augustus built one and dedicated the temple to Mars thanking him for a big victory. Next was the Forum of Peace, and the Forum of Nerva (dedicated to Minerva). Lastly Trajan built the biggest and grandest of all and had the basilica dedicated to his family lineage (basilica are not religious like Christians use them but rather for courts and markets). This ruins are buried directly under Via Fori Impiriale which is a large modern road in the center of the city. Much of the fori have yet to be uncovered because the area is so central and popular. We were allowed in the fori and then in the tunnels under the roads connecting the fori and got to see parts of each forum except the forum of Peace. We were very lucky and once again Gianni gave us lots to think about.

Column of Trajan looking at Basilica Ulpia

Super secret off limits tunnel under the highway
we walked through

Under the portico of the Julian Forum
facing away from the temple

All that remains of the Temple of Venus

Cloaca Maxima
The giant sewer they rerouted to
build the Caesarian Forum

There was a edieval settlement in the Cesarean Forum
You can see the Medieval and Roman stratification here

If you can see the harringbone brick on the very bottom
that was a Roman house that the forum was built OVER
So there are many many layers to excavate still

Medieval sewer we walked through to get to Nerva and Augustus

Amanda likes Nerva

All that is uncovered from Nerva, fake columns

Temple of Mars in Augustian Forum

Temple of Mars

I asked Pepperoni to cheese it up.... he didn't, what a meanie

Ginny at the Augustinian Forum

Can you see the footprint of the colossal statue? COLOSSAL!

These steps lead up to the Subira, slums of Rome

Pieces of marble that have to be classified

There are LOTS of piles of marble to be classified

After an exhausting morning all I wanted to do was come home and nap before Italian. As Ginny and I drag ourselves up the stairs to our apartment we find one of the IES representatives headed there also. I just wanted sleep!!!! She came in and inspected the apartment to make sure everything is working and we are following all our agreements. She chatted with us all about how our living situation is, do we have any problems with the teachers or classes, etc? It was tiring because she spoke in all Italian very rapidly (I could still follow). She loves the language apartments because we speak Italian and try to assimilate more. After 30/45 minutes she departed. We are supposed to have someone come and check-in with us this coming Tuesday but were surprised by this visit. By the time she had left there wasn't really enough time to take a good nap so I puttered around until it was time to go back to school at 4:30. I was so braindead, everyone in class was tired too and Italian was a struggle.

After two hours Julie and I walked home via Filippo's to get bread and prosciutto for her pasta dish. She asked for a little advice about the oz/kg conversion and suddenly he wanted to see the recipe and was giving her a new and improved version of it to try and of course taking euros off the original price for her. We got a couple produce items and came home to start cooking Filippo's recipe! One of Julie's Italian friends, Riccardo, came over in a confusing ordeal of trying to get coffee and running out of time before the potluck. So he helped cook the pasta too. I mixed up some zucchini, tomatoes, and potatoes with olive oil and rosemary and popped them in the oven. Sophia made her delicious sangria again, Julie's dish was pasta with asparagus and prosciutto and moz, Ginny made some all american garlic mashed potatoes, and Kat made pesto lasagna! Our guests brought bread and pesto and nutella pies! and tiramisu and tiramisu ice cream and wine and buffalo chick dip!! and suppli!!! and to top it all off: nutella banana sandwiches. We had quite the spread. As usual everyone had a fantastic time and everyone was too full for dessert but ate it anyway. It was a fun night. After everyone trickled out and dishes were cleaned I wasn't really tired thus I stayed up to skype with friends back home, of course it was only like 6pm for them. I even caught some of BFowl's radio show for the first time this semester. He claims I got a shout out but I swear he skipped my name! Waking up this morning I felt like I had the best sleep, it was the perfect temperature last night.