ROME AWAY FROM ROME: my walking tour

When I thought about the theme of my tour I wanted to do something I would enjoy myself; a tour I would take my friends and family on. My idea was to get away from the traditional sites of Rome with huge crowds of people that you need to elbow your way through. I chose to do a place in Rome that is so different that you do not even feel like you are anywhere close to the city. When we went to the zoo I fell in love with what we seen on the way; little did I know there was so much more. After going through my tour I felt so relaxed and refreshed. I hope that anyone that goes on this tour will enjoy it just as much as my group. This is a side of Rome that many people never get to experience because you never see much of it when you look at travel brochures or pictures.

To start my tour from Termini, take the metro line A to the Spanga stop. When you get off at Spanga just before you exit out of the metro station there will be signs to your right that say Villa Borghese. Follow the signs and go up the escalators until you are outside. Once outside you have arrived in Villa Borghese. Walk straight until you come to a dirt path on the left, this path leads up to Piazzale dei Martiri. Here you will find several busts of various people. Either way you look from here you see the street lined with trees and benches. If you take a right down the street (Viale delle Magnolie) and cross over to the other sidewalk and on the left will be Vialle Taragona. Down the hill to Via della Fontana Rotunda there is a large fountain that looks like a big blue pool. Everyone sits on the hillside reading and some put their feet in the fountain and lay in the sun taking in the beautiful day. After spending some time here across the fountain head towards the main road and take a right, you will pass a statue of Victor Hugo(famous writer). Cross the street toward the flowers and four lion fountains, still going the same way up the street. Turn left onto Vialle Pietro Canonica, take a right onto the first street; Vialle della Casina di Raffaello. Here you will see a small monument with a green dome that has a pine cone on top and columns all the way around. It has animals all over the inside of the dome and is very beautiful when you see the detail of it. Taking a left onto Vialle dei Pupazzi, Piazza di Sienna is on the right. Piazza di Sienna was built as an equestrian competition arena which is still used today.Looking to the left there is a very large statue. When you get closer to this statue you realize it looks like three different pieces of art in one. On top of the red stone statue is a bronze statue of a man on a horse and on the side is a marble relief sculpture of people. Continuing straight on the Vialle dei Pupazzi you will end up at Piazzale dei Cavalli Marine. In the middle is a beautiful fountain with seahorses underneath. Take a left here and another left onto Pietro Canonica. The museum of Pietro Canonica a Villa Borghese is on the right hand side. It looks like a castle and has some statues in front, it is the museum of Canonica the sculptor painter and musician. The admission to this museum is free, another plus for being away from busy Rome.

After the museum Piazza di Sienna will now be on the right, straight across from it will be an entrance to a gated park. If you follow the dirt path that runs parallel with the road you will run into Viale del Lago. Looking down you can see a beautiful pond with what looks like a Greek temple in the background. This part was my personal favorite. There are statues to look at on the way and once you get there it is nice to just relax and watch all the ducks swim by. On one side of the pond they rent out boats for a very reasonable price. I chose to end my tour at the most beautiful and relaxing place I have found in Rome. Floating out into the middle of a pond on a boat and hearing birds chirping definitely feels hours away from the city. While there are many more things to see in this area I wanted to keep it to a minimum so it felt relaxing instead of crazy; who wants to spend leisure time running around like crazy?

The Catholic church

The Catholic church is universal in many ways but Rome has had a large influence on it. For one catholic means universal. When I think about it being universal I think about how many countries and people so different from eachother who share the same beliefs. It is so amazing how wide spread it is everywhere. I also think about the pope, he is recognized everywhere as a leader of the church. He himself is universal because he speaks many different languages. While the religion is everywhere you can see how Rome has physically influenced the catholic churches. Angels are used because of the pagen belief of cupid. St. Peter's is very much influenced by the Roman style of building. I belive Rome is also a big part of the church in other ways. The idea of a Pope started here. Eventually the Pope became a major power that could heavily influence what was going on. If you look around Rome there is as surprising amount of artwork comissioned by the Pope. Overall the Catholic church is universal with a few uniquely Roman touches

The dome in Florence

For this midterm I immediately knew what I wanted to write about; the dome in Florence. When I learned about the dome in art history last year it really interested me. The dome was meant to be at the time, the largest in the world. This would have been a symbol of power for Florence. However, the original architects couldn’t finish it. It was meant to be bigger than the Pantheon but ended up being an embarrassment to Florence. For years it remained unfinished leaving a hole in the middle of the city’s church. The Medici family decided to find someone who could finish it, this would help gain them power. The person they picked for the job was Filippo Brunelleschi.
Brunelleschi studied the Pantheon trying to recover architectural knowledge that had been lost. He finally came up with a brilliant plan that would allow him to build the great dome of Florence. He was very secretive about his plans to build, even today there has been trouble understanding exactly how it was built. This build was such a great feat because he could not use any support while building it. The dome was finished and was finally the great symbol of Florence. Today the dome is still a beautiful place to go and very amazing to look at.
When I attended church I got my first look at the artwork on the inside of the dome. Even though my neck was hurting I couldn’t stop starting straight up at it. The very large fresco was started by Vesari in 1572 and then finished by Frederico Zuccaro. It depicts the last judgment. The fresco shows all the stages of the judgment from the angels to the depths of hell. The parts at the bottom of the dome representing hell show the pain and the torture of those who are getting tossed into it. Above hell we see the people getting judged and angels flying around. Even before researching the fresco I figured that it was something about heaven and hell. I thought it was the most interesting painting I have ever seen in a church. The dome itself is a beautiful piece of artwork and once I seen what was on the inside I only appreciated it more. I feel very fortunate to have been able to see it first hand and get the real experience.

Music

After learning about music in math class I was a little confused but also very interested. First of all I never knew how big a role math played in the aspects of music. It is used from the instrument to the composition. Also how there were such subtle changes in the three pieces we listened to that if I did not know they were supposed to be different I would not have heard the slight variations. I think I will listen more carefully to classical music to try and catch the small changes; however I don't feel like I know enough for it to completely change the way I listen to music. It did give me a greater appreciation, I think, than I would have had if we had not learned about music in class. I kept thiking how much thought went into each not and how they fit together so perfect as a whole piece. That was a new experience I am glad I had now that I was able to see a little farther into the world of music. Overall I had a good time at the concert.

Via Giulia

Before we learned about Via Giulia I never realized how many streets we went down that just did not make sense. The streets that curve around to lead into a dead-end and the funny placement of the sidestreets. Living in America, a country that is so new I never took into consideration that a long time ago they were not very concerned about making their streets perfect. If a map of a city in the U.S.was compared to Rome the differece would be very apparent.Via Giula was a nice place to go, I was surprised how many churches were on that one street. There was a church we passed with skulls all over it. The more I looked the more I noticed that the outside was a little disturbing for a church. I thought that that was probably a medieval church. I liked how unlike many of the streets in Rome Via Giulia was wide giving us more room to walk when cars went by. The arch was one of my favorite parts; I liked how it was supposed to be this great bridge built by Michelangelo but it never was finished. I think that Via Giulia was a good plan and a step in the right direction for city planning.

Leisure

In Itlay their leisure time is in the middle of the day. All the stores close down and people go home. They sit down together at home, relax and have family time. Stores closing down in the middle of the day has been hard to get used to; it seems so inconvient. I know its not strange for them because it is waht they are used to . In the U.S. I feel that our leisure time is after a full day of work and on the weekends. I prefer getting work over with all at once and going home for the rest of the day instead of taking a long break and going back to work. I'm not very sure what people do for leisure outside of Rome but I do see that they sit at cafes with their friends, walk their dogs, or just relax in a park or piazza. When I have free time I like to see my friends and do things outside. Where I live people usually do things outdoors as leisure activities or have picnics. Overall the biggest difference in leisrue is what time we do it and the way we plan ours out.

Medieval Art

The medieval artwork I chose is from Santa Maria Trastvere. It is on the outsitde of the church over the entrance. It is a mosaic from the 12th century. As soon as I seen it I knew that it had to be from the medieval period. The figures are not very realistic looking and not in proportion with eachother. Mary who is holding Jesus in the middle is larger than the rest of the figures to show her importance. I have also noticed that much of the artwork from this time were mosaics with much gold used in them. The inside of the church was covered in medieval artwork. I think that the shift of the way things were depicted is so interesting. Before this time everything looked very realistic. I think that the meaning was the most important part for medieval artwork because it was for lessons and faith. I learned that the reason the eyes on the people usually look so big is because it is supposed to represent their eyes being open wide to god and seing the right way in life.

Piazza

When we walked into the Piazza Novana it was full of people. It was a big open space in between all of these buildings. In the middle were statues and fountains. The piazzas here can be a get away from the busy city. When you look around people are sitting outside of cafes having casual conversation with eachother. I guess a piazza would be our equivalent of a town square; a meeting place for a town. There is much to do, but it also a relaxing atmosphere. Everywhere we looked around there were small shops to go into and locals and tourists alike. In the smaller piazzas away from major landmarks, they are much quiter and fewer tourists. It is a very nice place to sit down and have gelato.

Flowers!

Even though we could only find one place that sold flowers in Campo Dei Fiori we found a pretty wide selection. When we bought all the flowers I was pretty curious to see if they would all comply with the Fibonnaci numbers. Our flowers lost a few petals on the way so hopefully the numbers we counted are all right! Math is far from my favorite subject but this made it fun and interesting. I actually wanted to learn more about this and it surprised me. The flowers we bought contained: a red rose-13 petals, a mum-144, sunflower-32, yellow lily-6( even thought this is not one of the number there were three petals with spots and three plain ones.), daisy-34, and a gardenia-21.

Imperial statue

This statue from the Palantine hill is from the Imperial period. Honestly the only reason I knew what time this was from was the caption underneath it. I was hoping to find something clearly different from the Republican era. We talked about how the idea of angels was taken from cupid and how they usually did not have beards. I was looking for these qualities among others but most statues were not whole any more. The statue I chose has no head or arms so it was hard to tell what made this an Imperial statue. This statue is of Aphrodite, the detail makes it look more like a republican statue. I would guess that this was for personal use in a home because I see no religous purpose for it. Regardless it was a beautiful statue will very much detail on the clothing.

Religion

Being in Italy I have seen how much religion has influenced many things. We have been into countless churches and seen old buildings that were repurposed for religious uses. It is crazy to think how one religion affected so many people and the way they live. The culture completely changed. Learning about the history here we get to see what things were like before and after the wide spread of the christian faith. I believe that the promise of a future in heaven was the reason this religion spread to vastly. Like we discussed in class; the poor people did not benefit in the after life in pagean beliefs. Only the rich and rulers would have an after life, so the poor people could only benefit. I believe the promise for a future in heaven helps people lead a good life here because compared to an eternal life in heaven the time we have here is very small. The religion being rooted in the past helps hold on to tradition. The past present and future are all necessary parts of religion. We need the past to learn about the start of our religion and the lessons it has to teach us. We have the present to live our lives for God. The future is our reward for leading a good life.