Italy: Rome

"When in Rome, do as the Romans..."

Our time in Rome: June 28 - July 2, 2013

If we took the 'when in Rome' comment seriously then we all would have brought along our graffiti spray cans and done up the town!  While not as nasty as Naples, Rome certainly had its share of graffiti.  However, the sites and the history of this city more than make up for 'eyesore' areas.

2 Recommendations

We got 2 iPhone / iPod apps that significantly improved our experience in Rome (and no doubt will help with other cities as well).  The first app is the tripadvisor.com app.  One of the interesting features with this app is that it marks the 'attractions' throughout the city and the GPS feature allows you to see where you are in relation to an attraction, restaurant, metro station etc.  

This app really helped in Rome because there is SO much to see.  We would be walking along and see something like this:

and then look at the app, click on the attraction, read about what it was, the history behind it, reviews etc.  It really made the city much more interesting.  The above pillars are the remains of a temple dedicated to Hadrian.  The modern building has been built up where the temple once stood and uses the pillars as its facade.  Cool.

Here is another one that we would have walked right on by without the app...

This was a column dedicated to one of the Roman Emperors in the first or second century AD, but the reason it is interesting is the statue on top is now of Saint Paul!  Out with the pagan kings, in with representatives of the King of Kings!  

The second app that made a huge difference in our 'tourist' experience in Rome was the Rick Steve European Travel App.  We have been renting little audio guide tours when going to places like Pompeii or touring amphitheaters as in Pula, Croatia.  But what Rick Steve has done is created FREE audio guide tours of the major places in cities across Europe.  

In Rome, we downloaded guides for the Pantheon, Colosseum  St. Peter's Basilica  and the Sistine Chapel.  He has free walking tours around various cities as well as interviews with experts in a given area (ie Michelangelo in Rome).  The tours are interesting, funny, include a script if you prefer to read, fast forward / rewind abilities and generally are much better than the audio guides we have been using in other places.  Plus you use it with your own device and earphones.  We highly recommend this if you are planning a trip to Europe.  Did I mention they are FREE?  

We downloaded tours to each of the kids' iPods and my iPhone and it really helped make our tour of Rome much more meaningful (and saved us a boatload of money as well).  So, kudos to Tripadvisor.com and Ricksteves.com  Many of the facts noted below came from content in these apps.

The Spanish Steps

I don't know if we would have specifically set out to see the Spanish steps....but they were on the way to the Trevi Fountain so we stopped at this obviously popular place.

The girls were in a really goofy mood and we had a lot of fun here.  There were so many tourists here that we actually had fun purposefully photobombing other people's pictures.

The yellow house to the right of the Spanish steps is where the great English poet John Keats lived the last few months of his life.  His grave was just around the corner from where we stayed (though we didn't visit it) with the inscription "Here lies One / Whose Name was writ in Water " which is what he asked his friends to put on his gravestone.                

Feeling inspired after learning that Keats is rated the #6 poet of all times, V read this moving Keats poem on the Spanish Steps.  You can tell the goofy mood we were all in during this 1:23 minute video.... (Nice job staying focused V!)

The Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain stands 86 feet high and 161.3 feet wide, is the largest Baroque fountain in the city, and is one of the most famous fountains in the world.  If you dislike being around tourists, this most definitely is NOT the place for you.  It was packed with tourists.

Super impressive fountain...

Being the good tourists we are, we all threw a coin in the fountain....thus insuring (as legend has it) that we will return to Rome again one day.  We learned that an average of 3,000 Euros a day are thrown into the fountain.  The city collects the money and uses it to buy food for nearby homeless shelters, food kitchens etc.

Is it just me or does the photo above make it look like Rachel isn't even pregnant?  But, alas, she is!

The Pantheon

Romans loved their gods.  They had gods for everything (reportedly as many as 30,000) from love and money to street cleaning and sewage (seriously!).

The Pantheon was a Roman temple dedicated to all (pan) of the gods (theos). The original temple was built in 27 B.C. by the son-in-law of Caesar Augustus, Marcus Agrippa. In fact, the inscription below the triangular pediment proclaims in Latin, “M. Agrippa, LF Cos Tertium Fecit..." and so on ... "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucio, three times consul, made this." But after a couple of fires, the structure seen today was completely rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian around A.D. 120. 

Hadrian, an amateur architect, may have actually helped design it. Hadrian was a voracious tourist, personally visiting almost every corner of his vast empire. I recall from our trip to Israel that Hadrian was the one who went to Israel and wanted to stamp out all vestiges of Christianity.  So he identified the 'inn' in the tiny village of Bethlehem, destroyed it and put a pagan temple on the spot of...thus marking for centuries the place of Jesus' birth.  He did the same thing with the crucifixion site etc.  

As he traveled, he soaked up knowledge of all kinds, returning home to beautify the city with structures based on great buildings he'd seen abroad. The Pantheon entrance has the distinct look of a Greek temple — columns, crossbeams and pediment. 

But the Pantheon is very different. Other than the entrance, it's built on a circular foundation. Most of it is made not of large blocks of marble like a Greek temple, but of thousands and thousands of bricks. In typical Roman style, the walls are a shell of brick, filled in with poured concrete, forming walls 20 feet thick. Embedded in the walls are what architects call "blind arches," where the bricks form the shape of an arch to reinforce the walls.

But the dome is what makes this building unique — perhaps the most influential building in art history. Its dome was the model for the cathedral dome in Florence, which launched the Renaissance, and for Michelangelo’s dome of St. Peter’s, which capped it all off. Even Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Building was inspired by this dome.

The Pantheon fell into disuse and disrepair as the Empire crumbled in the 5th century AD. When the city was looted and vandalized by barbarians, some of the exterior marble was carried off, but the building itself remained intact. In 609, the Pantheon was saved from architectural cannibalism when it became a Christian church.  The big statue of Jupiter was replaced by the Virgin Mary, ensuring its upkeep through the Dark Ages. 

The only major destruction came during the Renaissance when a pope took the bronze plating from the ceiling of the entry porch and melted it down.  Scroll down to the info about St. Peter's church as much of the bronze was used to build the 7 story high bronze canopy over the alter.   The Pantheon is the only ancient building in Rome continuously used since its construction. The year 2009 marked the building’s 1,400th anniversary as a church!

As we headed to dinner, we passed by this yellow church, pulled out our apps, read about it and visited.  As you go through Europe and go into church after church it is hard not to get the feeling of 'been there, done that'....which is an awful feeling when you think about it as the work that went into these buildings is amazing.

But there was something about this little church that just resonated with us.  Maybe because its not famous.  Maybe because hardly anyone was there.   Maybe because Rachel always loved yellow houses and I guess yellow churches as well.....whatever the case it was a lovely little church.

And the sun hit the window just perfectly when we were there to show this red cross inside the church...

We watched Steve Martin's 'The Pink Panther' and AJ is obsessed with the little car 'Inspector Clouseau' drives so whenever he sees one, he makes sure to point it out.

He is also obsessed with ice cream....

Little kids make ice cream look sooooooo good, don't you think?

And afterward AJ made friends with 'the pretty police officer'  Ha!

The Colosseum

The next day we headed to the Colosseum.  The Colosseum was built at Rome's peak, midway in its glorious history. Rome lasted a thousand years, from 500 BC to 500 AD. It grew for 500 years, peaked for 200 years and fell for 300 years. For the first half, Rome was a Republic, ruled by elected senators, with an economy based on farming and trading wine and olive oil. The next 500 years, Rome was an Empire, ruled by a dictator called the Caesar. Rome's wealth came from conquering and occupying foreign lands, which supplied Rome with booty, tribute, and slave power.

Built in 80 AD, the Colosseum represents Rome at its grandest. Its real name was the Flavian Amphitheater, an arena for gladiator contests and public spectacles. When killing became a spectator sport, the Romans wanted to share the fun with as many people as possible, so they stuck two semicircular theaters together to create a freestanding amphitheater, the biggest in the Empire. 

We learned that wealthy citizens paid for 'the games' as a way to curry favor with the people as well as upper society....and ALL the games were FREE to the public.  The games were a way to bond people to the empire, make them feel good about their conquests, and basically serve as an emotional outlet for the public....many of whom were otherwise miserable.  

The sheer size of the Colosseum is impressive, even in our era of domed stadiums. With four oversized stories, it's 160 feet high, nearly a third of a mile around, and makes an oval-shaped footprint that covers six acres.

In its glory days, the whole thing was a brilliant white, highlighted with brightly-painted trim. Monumental statues of Greek and Roman gods  — also painted in bright colors  — stood in the arches of the middle two stories... Zeus, Venus, Hercules. The top of the structure was studded with wooden beams sticking straight up, to hold an awning that shaded the spectators inside. The stadium could accommodate 50,000 people. As Romans arrived for the games, they'd be greeted outside by a huge bronze statue of the emperor Nero, a hundred feet tall, gleaming in the sunlight.  

Of the 250 or so amphitheaters in the Roman Empire, the Colosseum was the grandaddy of them all, the biggest and most famous, with all the top-notch gladiators. Out-of-town visitors would marvel at it  — the biggest man-made structure they'd ever seen. Over time, "The Flavian Amphitheater" acquired a nickname, perhaps from the "colossus" of Nero that stood outside, or maybe just because it was so darn colossal, the wonder of its age. It became... the Colosseum.

Construction  — The Roman arch

The Colosseum was started around 72 AD under the emperors of the Flavian family. Vespasian broke ground on it, his son Titus inaugurated it, and his younger son Domitian finished it. It took less than ten years, which is impressive considering the size of the project.

To start, they had to drain a lake here in this valley between three hills. Next they sunk concrete foundations 40 feet deep. Then they brought the stone here from Tivoli  — it took 200 ox-drawn wagons shuttling back and forth every day for four years. The exterior is a skeleton made of heavy blocks of travertine, a hard white stone, like marble. 

The Romans pioneered the use of the rounded arch, which is how they could build on this tremendous scale....having unlimited slave power didn't hurt either.   

One of the things we learned on our tour in Israel in April was that the 'booty' from Jerusalem largely paid for this structure and many Jewish slaves from Israel not only helped build the structure but then were the first to be thrown to the lions once the Colosseum opened.  Thus, the Colosseum made a political statement. It trumpeted Rome's victory over rebellious Jews in Palestine in 70 AD. Also, having been erected on the former site of Nero's Golden House, the Colosseum symbolized how that hated emperor's private land was now reclaimed for the public good.

I always wondered about the holes that pockmark the exterior.  This is where big iron brackets were once driven in, stapling the larger stones together (which is exactly how the amphitheater in Pula was built). Each of the pillars flanking the ground-level arches weighs five tons, and all in all, they used three-and-a-half million cubic feet of travertine stone. 

Interior

When entering the Colosseum, you see a cross.  Standing at the cross, you’re on the “50-yard line,” on arena level....this is where the emperors would sit.   50,000 fans looked down on the playing surface, shaped like an ellipse and lined up on an east-west axis. Overhead, the whole stadium could be covered with an enormous canvas awning that could be hoisted across by armies of sailors to provide shade for the spectators — the first domed stadium.

The original arena floor is missing. What is seen today are the underground passages beneath the playing surface.  Originally, the arena was covered with boards, then sprinkled with 9 inches of sand. (In fact, the Latin word for sand is arena ).  The games pitted animals against animals, men against animals, and — in the main event — professional gladiators squaring off in mortal combat. The battles were bloody, gruesome, and cruel, and ended with at least one of the combatants dead. 

The games began in the morning with a few warm-up acts. First came the animals, things like watching dogs bloody themselves attacking porcupines. Or you'd see hunters prowling through fake forests in search of prey. Or wild animals were sic-ed on exotic human "animals," like dark-skinned chieftains captured from the so-called “barbarian” lands. The Colosseum's menagerie of beasts came from all over the empire, and were a sight in themselves: lions, tigers, crocodiles, elephants, rhinos, and even hippos. 

The animals were kept in cages beneath the arena floor.  You can see the maze of passageways in the picture below. This was like the "backstage" for the games. Here, workers prepared the animals, gladiators warmed up, and prisoners said their final prayers. It's also where stagehands readied the scenery, set pieces, weapons, and props for the elaborate spectacles.

At just the right moment, workers down below would hoist an animal up in an elevator, through a trap door in the arena floor. The animal would pop out from behind a blind into the arena — the hunter didn’t know where, when, or by what he’d be attacked. This brought howls of laughter from the hardened fans in the cheap seats who had a better view of the action. Nets ringed the arena to protect the crowd. 

At lunchtime came Act Two. This is when criminals and p.o.w.'s were executed, often in creative ways. They might be thrown to the lions  — naked and unarmed. Or they were dressed up like classical heroes and forced to star in a play featuring their own death. The arena would be decorated with fake scenery, buildings, or foliage, brought up from the passages below. Then the star wandered onstage, dressed as, say, Hercules or Adonis. There he was attacked by wild animals or by gladiators in costume, who'd kill him in the same way the legendary hero died.

Between rounds, fans were treated to palate-cleansing gimmicks, like female gladiators fighting each other, or a dwarf battling a one-legged man. Clowns, jugglers, and circus performers provided more comic relief.

Finally, in the afternoon, came the main event — the gladiators. These warriors had their own martial specialties. Some carried swords, protected only with a shield and a heavy helmet. Some threw the javelin. Others represented fighting fishermen, with a net to snare opponents and a trident to spear them. 

If a gladiator fell helpless to the ground, his opponent would approach the emperor’s box and ask: Should he live or should he die? Sometimes the emperor or master of ceremonies left the decision to the crowd, who would judge based on how valiantly the man had fought. They would make their decision — thumbs-up or thumbs-down. The Romans thought nothing of condemning a coward to the death he deserved. After a gladiator was killed, a man dressed up like Charon — the Grim Reaper of Roman mythology — entered the arena and dragged the lifeless body away.

The Colosseum was inaugurated in 80 AD with a 100-day festival in which 2,000 men and 9,000 animals were killed. That's roughly one death every five minutes. Colosseum employees squirted perfumes around the stadium to mask the stench of blood.  

To modern eyes, the games seem barbaric, but it suited Roman society. Rome was a nation of warriors that built an empire by conquest. These games placated and controlled the huge Roman populace. On an everyday basis, city-slicker bureaucrats could come here and personally witness the conquest that generated their wealth. Seeing the king of beasts — a lion — slain by a gladiator reminded the masses of man’s triumph over nature. Seeing exotic animals from Africa heralded their conquest of distant lands. The battles fought against Germans, Egyptians, and other barbarians were played out daily here. And having the thumbs-up or thumbs-down authority over another person’s life gave them a real sense of power. Imagine the psychological boost the otherwise downtrodden masses felt when the emperor granted them this thrilling decision. 

Arch of Constantine

The upper level of the Colosseum provides a fantastic view of the Arch of Constantine.  In 312 A.D., Emperor Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius in the crucial Battle of the Milvian Bridge. The night before, he'd seen a vision of a cross in the sky. Constantine — whose mother and sister were Christians — became sole emperor and legalized Christianity. 

This newly restored arch is like an ancient museum. It’s decorated entirely with recycled carvings originally made for other buildings. By covering it with exquisite carvings of high Roman art — works that glorified previous emperors — Constantine put himself in their league. Fourth-century Rome may have been in decline, but Constantine clung to its glorious past.

With the coming of Christianity to Rome, the Colosseum and its deadly games slowly became politically incorrect. However, gladiator contests continued here sporadically until they were banned in 435 A.D. Animal hunts continued a few decades more. As Rome's Empire dwindled and the infrastructure crumbled, the stadium itself was neglected. Finally, around 523 AD, after nearly 500 hundred years of games, the last animal was slaughtered, and the Colosseum shut its doors.

For the next thousand years, the structure was inhabited by various squatters  — used as makeshift apartments or shops; as a church, a cemetery, or as a place of refuge during civil disturbances. Over time, the Colosseum was eroded by wind, rain, and the strain of gravity. A series of earthquakes weakened the structure, and a powerful quake in 1349 toppled the south side.

Finally, it became a playground for AJ (Ha!)....

But to finish the story, the Colosseum was dismantled by the Roman citizens themselves, who used it as a quarry throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. They carted off pre-cut stones to be reused for palaces and churches, including St. Peter's. The marble was pulverized into mortar, and 300 tons of iron brackets were pried out and melted down, resulting in the pock-marking seen today. 

Finally in the 16th century, a series of popes took pity on the pagan structure. They saw themselves as protectors of Rome's legacy and preservers of the memory of Christians who may have been martyred here. They shored up the south and west sides with bricks and placed the big cross on the north side of the arena. 

And that is the story of the Colosseum.  It is now a great backdrop for photos with brides as well as good looking pregnant women....

The Forum

We headed over to the Forum which once was the heart of Rome and is now mostly a bunch of really run down ruins (with a few interesting exceptions).  It is a reminder to me, once again, that the greatest of the great nations....those that seem like they will last forever and dominate forever can and will decay and die given enough time.  The winds of change are always blowing on that which is human.

I remember walking through the Forum as a 12 year old on a family trip we took and thinking "what's the big deal?" as the ruins are really ruined for the most part here.  It helped a lot to have a guide via our apps walking us through the key points of the Forum

Arch of Titus

The arch Napoleon copied and made much larger to build the Arch de Triumph in Paris...

This arch commemorated the Roman victory over the province of Judea (or Israel) in a.d. 70. The Romans had a reputation as benevolent conquerors who tolerated the local customs and rulers. All they required was allegiance to the empire, shown by worshipping the emperor as a god. No problem for most conquered people, who already had half a dozen gods on their prayer lists anyway. But Israelites believed in only one god, and it wasn’t the emperor. Israel revolted. After a short but bitter war, the Romans defeated the rebels, took Jerusalem, sacked their temple, and brought home 50,000 Jewish slaves...who were forced to build this arch.

Roman propaganda decorates the inside of the arch. One side shows booty from the sacking of the temple in Jerusalem — soldiers carrying a Jewish menorah and other plunder.  The brutal crushing of the a.d. 70 rebellion (and another one 60 years later) devastated the nation of Israel. With no temple as a center for their faith, the Jews scattered throughout the world — the Diaspora. There would be no Jewish political entity again for almost two thousand years, until modern Israel was created after World War II. 

Basilica

A Roman basilica was a covered public forum, often serving as a hall of justice. In a society that was as legal-minded as America is today, you needed a lot of lawyers and a big place to put them. Citizens came here to work out matters like inheritances and building permits, or to sue somebody.

The layout is a long, central hall flanked by two side aisles. What you see in the picture above is the right side of the hall with the empty space being where the central hall used to be.  This floor plan was later adopted by medieval Christians, who required a larger meeting hall for their worship services than Roman temples provided. The Roman basilica became the model for virtually all Christian churches, from Italy to France to England, from Romanesque to Gothic to Renaissance. All have the same basic floor plan as a Roman basilica.  We saw this the next day when we visited St Peter's Basillica....it is like a massive copy of what you see in the picture above.

This basilica was begun by the emperor Maxentius, but after he was trounced in battle, the victor, Constantine, completed this massive building. No doubt about it, the Romans built monuments on a more epic scale than any previous Europeans, wowing their “barbarian” neighbors.  

Door that has been in use at this spot for over 1,700 years.  Even its locking mechanism works after 1,700 years...

Temple of Caesar

Julius Caesar’s body was burned on this spot — under the metal roof — after his assassination in 44 B.C. Caesar, born in the year 100 b.c., changed Rome dramatically. Popular with the people because of his military victories and charisma, he gained control of the government, suspended the Roman constitution, and ruled like a king or dictator. In the Forum, he cleared out many of the wooden market stalls and began to ring the square with grander buildings. He walked right by here on the day he was assassinated, the place where a street-corner Etruscan preacher called out to him: “Beware the Ides of March!”

Though he was popular with the masses, not everyone liked Caesar’s  politics. He was ambushed by a conspiracy of senators, including his adopted son, Brutus. One by one they stepped up to take turns stabbing him, and he died gasping his final astonished words to Brutus — “Et tu, Brute?”

The funeral was held here, facing the main square. The citizens gathered, and speeches were made. Marc Antony stood up to say (in Shakespeare’s words), “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” When Caesar’s body was burned, the citizens who still loved him threw anything at hand on the fire, requiring the fire department to come put it out. Later, Emperor Augustus dedicated this temple in his name, making Caesar the first Roman to become a god. 

Behind the wall into the small curved area was a mound of dirt with fresh flowers — given to remember the man who, more than any other, personified the greatness of Rome.  I thought it was exceedingly odd that after all these years Romans still put fresh flowers on the place where Julius Caesar was cremated.  

AJ just though it was a great place to play with his cars....

Caesar's temple is in the foreground.  His house used to be back where the clump of trees now is. The temple on the left was built by 2nd century emporer Antonio Pius and his wife Faustina.  Only the columns remain but it must have been a very impressive building to out of towners who lived in thatched roof cow dung houses!

Temple of Vesta

This is perhaps ancient Rome’s most sacred spot. Notice that the temple remains are curved. Originally, this temple was circular, like a glorified farmer's hut, the kind Rome's first families lived in. Rome considered itself one big family, and inside this temple, a fire burned, just as in a Roman home. Although we think of the Romans as decadent, in fact they prided themselves on their family values. People venerated their parents, grandparents, and ancestors, even keeping small statues of them in sacred shrines their homes. This temple represented those family values on a large scale; its fire symbolized the "hearth" of the extended family that was Rome.

And back in those days, you never wanted your fire to go out. As long as the sacred flame burned, Rome would stand. The flame was tended by six priestesses known as Vestal Virgins.

The six Vestal Virgins were chosen from noble families before they reached the age of 10. They served a 30-year term, tending the flame in the temple. Honored and revered by the Romans, the Vestals had the power to pardon condemned criminals. They even had their own box at the Colosseum, opposite the emperor.

Statue in the House of the Vestal Virgins

As the name implies, a Vestal took a vow of chastity. If she served her term faithfully — abstaining for 30 years — she was given a huge dowry, and allowed to marry. But if they found any Virgin who... wasn’t, she was strapped to a funeral cart, paraded through the streets of the Forum, taken to a crypt, given a loaf of bread and a lamp...and buried alive. Many women suffered the latter fate.

The kids listening to / reading our tour of the Forum....

Each emporer tried to outdo the previous one in building up the Forum and making it more spectacular.  The structure built into the side of the hill was the palace of Caligula....

AJ wanted to play cars there too but he had to settle for the main square....

Final view of the Forum looking back down the path we had come from the Colosseum.  Immediately behind us was Capitol Hill where the Senate used to meet and where currently a modern day government building now resides.   

After a long day of touring we hit the ice cream shop while waiting for our restaurant to open (7pm opening time!) and had some really weird flavors here (Raspberry beer flavor which was gross as well as some other not so great flavor).

But dinner hit the spot and something about the Pizza boxes just tickles V's fancy...

Back at the apartment, AJ wanted to wash his cars...

And then washed himself!

St Peter's Basilica

Nearly 2,000 years ago, this area was the site of Nero’s Circus — a huge, cigar-shaped Roman chariot racecourse. The tall obelisk you see in the middle of the square was the centerpiece of Nero's race track, with chariots doing laps around it. The Romans had no marching bands, so for halftime entertainment they killed Christians. The Christians were forced to fight wild animals and gladiators, or they were simply crucified. Some were tarred up, tied to posts, and burned — human torches to light up the evening races.

Many believe that one of those killed here, in about 65 A.D., was Peter, Jesus’ right-hand man. 

Saint Peter

According to early accounts, Peter had come to Rome to spread Jesus' message of love, but his outspoken practice of a forbidden religion landed him here. At his own request, Peter was crucified upside-down, because he felt unworthy to die as his master had. After the crowds dispersed, his friends buried his remains in a nearby cemetery on what was called “the Vatican Hill.” For 250 years, these relics were quietly and secretly revered. The altar and dome of today’s massive basilica mark that exact spot of Peter’s grave.

Peter had been recognized as the first “pope,” or bishop of Rome, from whom all later popes claimed their authority as head of the Church. When Christianity was finally legalized in 313, the Christian emperor Constantine built a church on the site of Peter’s martyrdom. This earlier church, now known as “Old" St. Peter’s, lasted 1,200 years. 

By the year 1500, the time of the Renaissance, Old St. Peter’s was falling apart and considered unfit to be the center of the Western Church. Pope Julius II — the same man who hired Michelangelo to do the Sistine Ceiling — laid the cornerstone in 1506 for a brand new church to be built by the architect Bramante. He was succeeded by a number of other architects, each with his own designs, including Michelangelo who began the magnificent dome. As construction proceeded, they actually built the new church around the old one. 120 years later, the church we see today was finally finished, and Old St. Peter’s was dismantled and carried out the doors. 

There was a long line to get into the church, but it moved at a good pace...

The church is massive.  Most churches would fit inside the atrium leading into the church.  To give you a sense of how big St. Peter's is, the purple circle is where Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emporer in 800 AD.  That spot is NOT at the very back of the church....regardless look at the bronze canopy in the distance (the one that has a bunch of Pantheon bronze in it).  It sits over the alter which marks the place where Saint Peter was buried.  That bronze canopy is 7 STORIES high!....and yet in this picture it looks tiny.  The fact that it looks small gives you an idea of just how far away it is.

The church is 2 football fields long.  I laughed when V said "I think Mimi's church is bigger than this!"  Mimi's church might fill in the portion under Michaelangelo's dome but is most definitely no where near the size of this church.

All around the top of the church in Latin are the words Jesus spoke directly to Peter....

The ceiling is beautiful...

The detail amazing...

Notice Peter in a toga here....a clear sign that the statue was reconstructed with some Roman's head being taken off and Peter's put on.

The pillars holding up the bronze canopy have the face of a pregnant woman (a relative of the designer of the canopy) with the faces of childbirth shown.  This is the really painful looking face along with Rachel's reaction....

AJ and me in front of the statue of St. Andrew...

Love the dove at stain glass at the front of the church...

There are dead popes in the basilica (not pictured), dead popes beneath the basillica, and live popes (one retired, one active) just around the corner in the papal residence.

But what I'll remember most from the visit was Michaelangelo's Pieta.  To think he did this when he was just 24 years old is amazing and a sign to me that the man was absolutely touched by God with a gift.

When we exited the church, we noticed the central door. Made from the melted-down bronze of the original door of old St. Peter’s, it dates from around 1450 and was the first Renaissance work in Rome. It’s only opened on special occasions. The panels feature Jesus and Mary at the top, Paul and Peter in the middle, and (at the bottom) how those saints were martyred, Paul was decapitated and Peter crucified upside-down.

Apparently the Catholic church finds the actions of the apostles and how they went to their deaths as something that is significant.  I wrote about this when we were finishing up our tour of Greece.  Check it out:  (opens in a separate window)

http://www.tsfga.blogspot.com/2013/06/greece-truth-and-last-days-in-greece.html

We saw the Swiss guards at the Vatican and took a break here not realizing the clock was ticking on our chance to see the Sistine Chapel.

The Vatican Museum ticket office closes at 4:00pm and we learned that at 3:50pm when we were still PLENTY far away from the entry to the museum.  We moved on out with kudos going to H who happened to have a heavy backpack on but wore it without complaint as we made the trek to the ticket office.  We got there just in time!

The museum itself stays open another 2+ hours so we saw some nice things on our way to the Sistine Chapel (which is what we really wanted to see)....

My favorite part of this hallway were the green tapestries on the side walls showing all the places in the world where the gospel has been preached "Go into all the world...." and as you walk down the hall the places shown pretty much represent the entire world.

The Sistine Chapel

In 1508, Pope Julius II asked Michelangelo to take on this important project. Michelangelo said, “No, grazie.” Michelangelo insisted he was a sculptor, not a painter. The Sistine ceiling was a vast undertaking, and he didn’t want to do a half-vast job. But the pope pleaded, bribed, and threatened until Michelangelo finally consented, but only on the condition that he be able to do it his own way.

Julius had asked for only 12 apostles along the sides of the ceiling, but Michelangelo had a grander vision — the entire history of the world until Jesus. He spent the next four years (1508 to 1512) craning his neck on scaffolding six stories up, covering the entire ceiling with frescoes depicting scenes from the Christian universe.

In sheer physical terms, the ceiling is an astonishing achievement: 5,900 square feet of frescoes, with the vast majority done by his own hand. (Raphael, for example, only designed most of his rooms, letting assistants do the grunt work.)

First, Michelangelo had to design and erect the scaffolding, so he and his workers could reach the ceiling. Any materials had to be hauled up on pulleys. Then, the ceiling had to be plastered. Fresco is painting on wet plaster. When the plaster dries, it locks the colors in so they have a special translucent glow. The trick is, you have to work quickly, before the plaster dries. So assistants would mix the plaster and trowel it on. They'd only do as much as Michelangelo could expect to finish in a day, about a fourth the size of one of the central panels. If Michelangelo didn't get it right the first time, they'd have to scrape the whole thing off and start over. 

Michelangelo worked standing up, not lying down as popular myth has it. He bent backward and reached up. If you’ve ever struggled with a ceiling light fixture or worked underneath a car for even five minutes, you know how heavy your arms get. The physical effort, the paint dripping in his eyes, the creative drain, and the mental stress from a pushy pope combined to almost kill Michelangelo.

But the result was dazzling. I found it interesting that he did the back half of the ceiling first (not pictured as I didn't realize I couldn't take 'no flash' photos and thus only got these 3 before being told to put the camera away).  After he took the scaffolding down to erect it on the other side of the room, he didn't like how the back half looked....too busy, the people not big enough etc.  So the rest of the work side was done with much larger characters and fewer busy scenes.  

Nothing I write here and no picture on the internet can do this work justice.  You have to be there looking at it to really appreciate what Michelangelo did.  I personally think it is the greatest piece of art in the world.  We were there when it was supposedly 'not busy' but it seemed pretty busy to us!  We were in the chapel at least 45 minutes listening to our tour and just looking at the detail....and laughing at Michelangelo's sense of humor.  In the last judgment scene at the bottom right corner he put his greatest critic (who complained about all the nudity in Michelangelo's work)...he put that critic going to hell with a snake wrapped around him hiding his private parts.

We also found it interesting that after his death the prudish critics won as another pope commissioned another artist to paint on clothes to the naked people in the Final Judgment scene.

All in all, we enjoyed our time in Rome.  I don't think it was our favorite city but it is so full of history and so connected to much of what we have been learning about in other parts of our trip that I felt like our visit tied together much of what we learned in Israel, Turkey, and Greece.

The exit staircase out of the Vatican Museum, a piece of art itself! 

Til next time, God bless

Other Favorite Photos...