An Artists' Guide to Rome
Off to Rome to see the imperial city of the Roman Empire and the current capital. After spending an uneventful day at a hotel by the airport that turned out to be very far from the city I went closer to the city and visited some magnificent monuments and ruins. I went on a city walking tour to visit the Roman Ruins and some of the most important roman monuments that were turned into Churches during the Dark Ages and Renaissance. The most memorable was the Colosseo (Coliseum) that was used for the gladiator contests and exotic animal battles (if you have not seen the movie Gladiator starring Russell Crowe it is a real link to the events of the past). The tour then went through the largest Roman ruins with the Arch of Constantine, the Arch of Titus, the arch of giano, the forum of Caesar, the forum of Augustus, the forum of Nerva, the sacred road and many other monuments. A few of my favourites relate to movies that I have seen and loved. One such movie is Spartacus, another is Ben Her. I really loved seeing the Circus Maximus, now a large running track and dog park, but was once the site of a huge arena with horse races that was prominent in the movie "Ben Her".
I ended up being quite wet and a bit miserable during the museum visit with squishing wet shoes every step I took while being herded with the mass of humanity towards the Sistine Chapel.
Another movie is "Roman Holiday" with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. She is a Scandinavian princess that escapes her royal obligations to be normal for a weekend. She meets Gregory Peck’s character who was a jaded news reporter who recognizes her and indulges her fantasy of living a normal life for a story and then for real love and respect. I went to visit many of the sites and do many of the things that were in the movie that I have loved for years; I threw a coin backwards over my shoulder into the Trevi Fountain (one coin to insure a return, two coins to come back with the love of your life, three coins to come back with an Italian husband/ bride.....may you never know the amount of coins I threw), ran up the Spanish Steps, ate a gelato, went through the Piazza Navona, went dancing by the Tiber river, explored the piazza del Popolo, went in St. Peters church, St. Peters square and finally put my hand in the notorious Boca de VERITAS (the mouth of truth will supposedly snap shut onto your inserted hand if you have told a lie). These movies have helped bring long ago events and places that I have never seen alive for me and so it is very rewarding to see them in person and experience the things in life that I have only seen others do.
The books "Angels and Demons" and "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown was very interesting to me a few years ago and many of the sites written in these religious/ historical fiction books are here in Rome and it has been exciting to visit them also. Most of the sites have been churches and since I have seen over a hundred churches already I have not been very excited go out of my way to visit more. But, the spectacular churches in Rome have certainly been an exception. The Santa Maria degli Angeli was designed by Michelangelo using the partially ruined hot water bath house of the Bath of Emperor Diocletian (other parts of the warm and cold water baths were also restored and open as a museum). There are many really unique and interesting things about this church; the best is a large brass line with numbers, the zodiac and star constellations along the floor. Then through two small holes high up on the walls a beam of light illuminates a section of the line telling the date and the sign of the zodiac. Although not all of the massive bath house was restored or open it was amazing to see such a huge building complex in its original form.
Seeing the Pope give an audience in St. Peters square was very cool. He drove past in the little pope mobile only three or four meters from me. I knew where he would be travelling and so I arranged myself a seat in the right area with a bunch of Australians from the Hostel that I was staying.
On a rainy day I was without many options. The day before I was stuck in a two hour line to get into the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel with pouring down rain. I ended up being quite wet and a bit miserable during the museum visit with squishing wet shoes every step I took while being herded with the mass of humanity towards the Sistine Chapel. (Luckily, after the Sistine Chapel the crowd thinned out and our group was able to see many of the other things in relative peace). Therefore, I decided to go to the movie theatre and see "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" in English...wow. A nice diversion for a wet and cold day. I think that I have talked enough about movies in this letter so I will forgo any commentary about the movie, but I recommend it.
One of the things that has come up a lot during discussions here is why the Roman Empire weakened and fell, (as all empires eventually do), but why it was not rebuilt and why many of the inventions and knowledge that they had was lost for 800-1200 years. They had aqueducts bringing fresh clean water, sewer systems, indoor plumbing, hot water baths, glass in their windows, concrete, good buildings, good roads, peace, plenty of good food for lots of people and good trade. Many of these things took 1000 years to rediscover.
Why?
Looking back we can see that the Roman Empire has some large problems like; free bread and circuses for their citizens (a bad idea leading to a lazy privileged populace), massive slavery (leading to the decline of market forces due to cheap labour...bad for the slave and the slaveholder in many other ways also), too fast of growth leading to an overextended empire, lack of peaceful passing of power to the next rulers leading to lots of civil wars, and other economic and social problems.
But, every other destruction of Europe was rebuilt and progress went forward, like when other wars destroyed cities and empires, when the plagues wiped out about half of Europe, the Vikings rampages, the Mongol hordes, the religious wars especially Germany's 100 Years War laid waste to towns and cultures they rebuilt and continued to move forward in thinking and technology and inventions, never backwards. Why did the fall of Rome lead to so many years of going backwards to just scratching a living out of the dirt throughout the Dark ages?
