Day 9: Wednesday, April 30, Rome

A good example of Roman driving: organized chaos that treats rules as suggestions.

This morning we met one of William’s friends from Hillsdale College who is taking the semester to study at John Cabot in Rome. He gave us a walking tour of part of Rome and added his commentary on Rome and everything Italian. I enjoyed the guy, though I wasn’t ready to take all of his assessments of Italians to the bank. I did learn that piazza is any meeting place of several roads, but informally a piazza has a church at the intersection whereas a largo or campo does not. He also said that people navigate by piazzas, not by streets. That makes a lot of sense because alley-like roads cut in random directions across Rome. It would be nearly impossible to memorize all of their names and orientations, and I don’t think some of them even have names. Buses also announce their ending piazza, usually with a “via ___” to mark which road it will take to get there. While we were riding the public transportation he said that Romans rarely buy and validate their bus tickets (you’re supposed to put it in a machine to read/cancel it) and that when an inspector hops on the bus there is a rush to validate tickets before the inspector gets to you and fines you. I can imagine this might be true and we saw very few people validating tickets, but I don’t think all of them are bilking the system – if you have a multi-day pass you only validate it the first time and then it expires after a certain time period.

The oculus of the Pantheon, one of my favorite structures.

We went by the Vittorio Emmanuale monument (the “Wedding Cake” to Romans), the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, and the Trevi Fountain, among other landmarks. Our student-guide said that Italians don’t like the Wedding Cake because it is plain white. This month the Spanish Steps are covered in hundreds of potted flowers, which made them much prettier than just a bunch of steps. Legend has it that if you toss a coin into the Trevi Fountain over your shoulder your wish will be granted and you will return to Rome. I can’t say anything to the contrary, because I did it once before and now I’m back.

That afternoon we hit the Vatican Museum (including the Sistine Chapel) and St. Peter’s Basilica. The Vatican Museum is an incredible hodge-podge of Greco-Roman artifacts that seem barely sorted, like someone who saved baseball cards from a house fire knowing they would be valuable but not knowing what to do with them. I had forgotten hat Raphael’s School of Athens, which I enjoy, is in the Vatican.

A mosaic lining the bottom of St. Peter's dome.

The crown jewel is, of course, the Sistine Chapel. However, I found it underwhelming the first time and had the feeling repeated. Michelangelo did a great job on the paintings and they cover an enormous space, but many other churches around here are also covered in frescos and works of art. It certainly stands out among the chapel paintings, but in my book it doesn’t match the hype. One thing I do find amazing is just how much these artists were able to do. Bernini designed a large part of the Vatican and St. Peter’s, his sculptures show up everywhere in Rome, etc. I’m sure he had a small army of assistants to help apply the finishing touches while he moved on to his next work, but I still can’t imagine the time it would take to sculpt or paint one of these works. Van Gogh produced a little more than one canvas per day for his last 90 days or so, but even then he was painting 2’x3’ canvases, not carving 3-D marble or casting bronze.

Inside St. Peter's. For perspective, the canopy over the alter is about 7 stories tall. There is a person in the picture (click to enlarge) who is about 1/2 as tall as the marble base for the columns.

After the Sistine Chapel you go through a series of rooms housing modern religious art. I only saw three people in the entire system of rooms. Granted, by this time you have been on your feet for a long time, you’ve already seen what most people come to see, and most people who go to the Vatican Museum are probably Greek, Roman, or Renaissance lovers, but I think the almost total absence of interest in the modern art is telling. Most modern art doesn’t compare with the old, in my opinion. That isn’t to say that art done today is worthless, just that the style most people refer to when they say “modern art” doesn’t seem to stand with the old masters.

A view along a finger of the Tiber.

Fake bag/sunglass vendors are everywhere. I’m sure it’s technically illegal, but the police don’t prosecute it. It seems odd to have styles come out of Milan only to be sold for pennies on the streets of Rome. Other people walk around hawking electronic bubble-blowers – you dip them in bubble solution and pull a trigger and a fan blows bubbles while making those cheap electronic space-gun noises. I never saw anyone buy one and I can’t figure out how there would be a market big enough to justify the many sellers we saw.