A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum... I never actually made it. On Friday and Saturday I went on a trip to Rome with my 16th Century Italian Art class. If Renaissance art isn't your thing please skip to the end of this entry. It was one of the best weekends I've had in Italy so far. Rome is an art history student's wet dream. With ruins from the ancient world, some of the best Renaissance and Baroque art, and even some modern art. We got off the train and on to a bus that took us to the Vatican. We started off in the Vatican museum looking at works by Raphael and Michelangelo. Including Raphael's Transfiguration, the tapestries he designed for the Sistine Chapel, and his famous fresco The School of Athens. We also saw a lot of the Vatican's collection of ancient Roman statues including the Belvedere Torso and Laocoon. Which is the greatest Hellenistic sculpture. We also discussed the meaning and significance of the tradition of Papal patronage. Now I found this topic to be fascinating. I love analyzing why people patronize art and artists. The political, social, economic, cultural reasons are all so interesting. I realize that many people would probably disagree with me. I suppose it comes from having a mother who's worked in development for arts organizations. Then we went into the Sistine Chapel. There really are no words to describe the Sistine Chapel. The images you see of it just don't do it justice. You lose the sense of scale and of the vibrance and vivacity of the work. Finally we went into St. Peters Basilica. It's the largest Cathedral in the world and being inside you both realize it (because they compare themselves to other cathedrals by marking their lengths on the floor) and don't. Everything is on a massive scale that fits together beautifully. Yet standing inside the Cathedral you don't feel small. In St. Peters we saw Michelangelo's Pieta. It's an amazingly beautiful statue. He puts so much emotion into the marble you can't help but be moved despite the fact that the statue is behind 6 inches of bullet proof glass.

After leaving the Vatican we had a break for lunch. I had Spaghetti Carbonara, which is probably one of my favorite pasta preparations. It was a nice lunch of comfort food and a restorative glass of red wine. After lunch we went to the Church of St Peter in Chains. We saw Michelangelo's colossal statue of Moses. I loved that statue there is so much movement in it despite the fact that Moses is seated. It's in the way that he plays with his beard and in his gaze. After that we went back to the hotel and basically crashed until dinner. It's amazing how much energy appreciating art takes.

Dinner on Friday exemplifies everything I HATE about group travel. The 5 people I had dinner with were awesome but the meal itself... not so much. Our original plan was to walk to the Trevi fountain and have dinner somewhere nearby. We only made it about halfway before some of the group felt that they were too tired and hungry to keep going. While we'd past several cute, small restaurants earlier on our walk but the place people insisted on stopping at was huge, touristy, generic, and had the vibe of a chain. I had an absolutely unexceptional pizza. I admit I was dissapointed, Rome is a city with great food, and I hate feeling like I wasted an opportunity to eat well. Part of group travel is being flexible and willing to make compromises. I just wish that didn't mean compromising the quality of my meal. What can I say I'm a proud food snob, the daughter of a chef. After dinner we were all to tired to go to the fountain. We just went back to the hotel and crashed.

Saturday was another day of art. We started the day at the Farnesina a 16th century pleasure villa. The decoration theme was Greek and Roman mythology. Ovid anybody? My favorite frescos were Raphael's Galatea and the Loggia (room) of Cupid and Psyche. The Farnesina was built as the pleasure palace of Pope Julius II's banker. Half of the frescos contain erotic or suggestive images. The decadence is wonderful.

After the Farnesina we went to the Villa Borghese. This was the part of my trip I'd been looking forward to the most. The Borghese commissioned, purchased, and stole countless works of art by some of the worlds greatest artists. There were tons of Titians but none of them were tiny. We also saw a lot of paintings by Raphael. This was a weekend for Raphael. After that we got to the part of the gallery I'd been waiting for with baited breath... the Baroque artists. I got to pay homage to the Berninis and Carrevagios. I love Carrevagio, this is an artist whose biography is known through jail records and arrest warrants. His paintings are dark (literally and often metaphorically). He has a self-portrait as Bacchus suffering from alcohol poisoning. Seeing the Bernini sculptures was the highlight of my trip. Bernini is my favorite sculptor. If we'd been allowed to take pictures there would be pictures of me genuflecting before his Apollo and Daphne. The details of that statue are breathtaking. The delicacy of the leaves, the swirl of the drapery, Apollo's sandals (which I covet). I've always wanted to take a detail photo of the sandals on the statue to a shoemaker and tell him to make them for me. I also got to see Canova's statue of Pauline Bonaparte as Venus. I love this statue, Pauline was an aging tart and this statue captures that. Going to the Villa Borghese just made me so happy and not even the awful weather could change that.

Our next stop was lunch in front of the Pantheon.

I had the best meal of my trip to Rome in front of the Pantheon. I had fettucini with artichokes. It was phenomenal. The pasta was al dente, the artichokes were fresh, there was a hint of olive oil and lemon, and lots of parmesan cheese on top. In short it was everything I could possible want from a bowl of pasta. After lunch we went in the Pantheon. As buildings go the Pantheon is pretty badass. It's ancient, massive, and there's a hole in the middle of the dome. While we were there it was pouring rain and it rained inside the building. From the Pantheon we were going to walk through past all the ancient Roman forums to get to the Colosseum. Due to the rain our group leaders decided that we'd take cabs to the Colosseum instead. The hoped the cabs would at least take us past the forums instead. We did get to do a drive by shout out to the forum but I never actually made it to the forum. Halfway through our visit to the Colosseum it stopped raining. The entire group got so excited when the sun came out. And the Colosseum looked beautiful in the afternoon sunlight. There are also fantastic views of ancient Roman ruins from the Colosseum. As you can see I enjoyed both the ruins and the sunshine.

On Sunday I was back in Florence and the weather decide to be nice for once. It was 50 degrees and sunny. I decided to celebrate the perfect weather by going to the Chocolate festival in Santa Croce. After all I love chocolate. I tried some chocolate liqueurs, and let me tell you Godiva has nothing on what I tried. It was basically melted chocolate with alcohol. Chocolaty and delicious with slight burning sensation on the back of your throat to alert you to the alcohol's presence. I also ate one of the most epic pastries of my life. Considering my obsession with all things chocolate and pastry that says a lot. Basically this looked kinda like a meat pie or pasty. It had a thick crust covered with powdered sugar rather than flour. The inside was filled with chocolate. I sat in the sunshine on a bench in the piazza and watched the people go by. In that moment I realized that life really doesn't suck.