The Events of Thursday, March 17, 2011

                Rome is a bustling city. No, bustling doesn’t seem to work. How about crazy? No, crazy isn’t quite it. Oh, here’s the word, insane. There we go. Rome is insane. But, hidden underneath the insanity, the pouring rain, the millions of people trying to sell you umbrellas, and the suffocating crowds, there is a history and a sophisticated sense of beauty so elaborate, that all of the craziness, excuse me, insanity, is kind of explained. Have you ever been in a place where if you put your foot on the puddled asphalt that we call a street, you put yourself in danger of first being squished like a bug and then getting yelled at in Italian by a driver who is going 95 miles an hour, but can go 15 inches away from that street and still be in an equal danger, this time of being sold 10 trillion umbrellas and going on 700 different tours without opening your mouth to speak? If not, then you obviously haven’t been in Rome. In Roma, as the Italians call it, the red light is just a suggestion. And the umbrella people don’t seem to notice that if I am walking by underneath an umbrella, that I really don’t need another one. But, somehow, the city makes you want to love it and in a minute, I’ll tell you why.

                Only ten minutes after leaving our apartment building, we were offered an umbrella at least 50 times and were offered “the best deal you can get” by three different tour guides. By the time the third tour person came up to us, Caitlin and I were really starting to get annoyed. And we couldn’t seem to escape from this one. But, as it turned out, it was best that we didn’t. Louis, from New York, stopped us when we were walking and persuaded Daddy to stop and listen to his spiel. “Good morning, folks, where are you all headed?” We had started out to visit a Tourist Information Center to buy a Roma Pass that would give us endless transportation and no extra admission fee for two sites in Rome for a period of three days. “Well, I can tell you right now that that won’t do you any good. Today is a national holiday for Italy. They’re celebrating 150 years of being a unified country. So, pretty much nothing will be open today except for the Vatican Museums, since they are their own country, and I can get a special deal for your family. You don’t have to wait in that line (we could see the line even from where we stood), and it will cost you much less than both regular admissions and if you were to buy a Roma Pass. The Roma Pass would be a waste for today because it doesn’t cover the Vatican Museums and nothing else in Rome is open today.”

                After discussing prices and saying we would like to do that, he led us over to a nearby café where a group of people were also waiting. Louis introduced us to Brian, from Bosnia, and started to get us set up. We each got a yellow circle sticker, but then Daddy discovered that he was a little short on cash. So, the large group left and Louis and Daddy rushed to the nearest ATM to cover the cost. Then, we followed another very tall man, (he even beat Daddy in height), to our special entrance into the Vatican Museum. Before we knew it, we were joined with the group and had gone through security, checked our umbrellas, but not our backpacks (what is it with this city and umbrellas?), and were putting on headsets in a very crowded and stuffy entrance ballroom (it was large enough to be a ballroom at least). After following Brian up a really long elevator, we immersed ourselves in the rich history of this area, the amazing art, and Brian’s light humor.

                First, we went out into a courtyard, (the rain had stopped and the wet sidewalk was glistening in the sun), and got our first glimpse of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. Michelangelo designed the interior and exterior, but did not live to see it built. But, when it was completed, there became a law that no building in the surrounding area could be higher than the dome and therefore, there are no skyscrapers in Rome. We walked back inside and then back outside into another courtyard. In the center of this courtyard was a large bronze sculpture of the earth made by a guy named Tomato about 20 years ago. The surface of the earth was smooth and golden, but in certain places there were cracks and in the cracks were geometrical shapes. It was supposed to represent how the Vatican City is on the inside of the world of Rome. If you pushed the gigantic golden sphere, it will start to spin slowly, but it was a couple tons, so we decided to wait on that until later. Then, there was perfectly green grass with daisies here and there with sidewalks crisscrossing the grass, leading to the walkway around the grass. On our left was a giant bronze pinecone guarded by two bronze peacocks, some of the few bronze sculptures that survived the Roman Era. Pretty much all of the pieces of art in the Vatican Museums, including the entire Egyptian section, were plunder from the cities and countries that the Romans conquered. Most of the bronze statues were melted down into weaponry, but if the Romans liked the art, before they would melt it, they would make one out of marble exactly like it. On either side of the pinecone were two of the oldest pieces in the Vatican Museums, two lion statues that the Romans had stolen from the Egyptians dating back to 2000 B.C. Once we left the courtyard, we saw so much that you would be here all day. But, as it is, I will only mention some of the highlights.

                After walking through halls filled with thousands of marble busts, torsos, limbs of bodies, and full length statues, we left into a smaller courtyard with a mossy fountain trickling in the center. The square shaped courtyard was surrounded by buildings on all four sides. On each of the walls and in all four corners were marble figurines of Roman or Greek gods or goddesses. Closest to us, upon walking in was a full length statue of the god of youth, Apollo. He was supposed to be holding a bow and arrow innocently and effortlessly in both hands, but when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, all statues, temples, and any reference to paganism were destroyed, hidden, or buried in the ground. After a long period of restoration work after the statue was found, Apollo was starting to look like himself again and with exception of the missing bow, was ready to be displayed.

                We saw two other Roman gods that none of us recognized and then we saw a statue that was one of my favorites. Laocoonte was a Greek warrior from the story of the Trojan horse. If you do not recall the story of the Trojan horse, Greece and Troy were at war, so the Greeks made a giant wooden horse and hid soldiers in it. The Trojans assumed that the horse was a surrender gift from the Greeks and started to bring the horse into the city. However, this man, Laocoonte, was a smart one, and told them to not be fooled by the horse. The goddess Athena was looking down from Mount Olympus and was rooting for the Greeks, and this guy Laocoonte was getting in the way. Hence, she threw giant snakes on poor Laocoonte and the Trojans went on with their plan and brought the horse into the city. The statue of Laocoonte was found in some Roman’s backyard in the 1500s, with extreme damage. His entire right arm was gone. Michelangelo and Rafael were appointed to assess and repair the damage. Rafael assumed that the arm was supposed to be thrust towards the heavens as if Laocoonte were asking the gods why they were doing this to him. However, Michelangelo said that the anatomy of his body clearly showed that Laocoonte was pulling a snake off of his back. They argued, but eventually Rafael won. To get revenge, when Michelangelo painted the Judgment Day scene above the alter, he put the arm of Jesus in the position that he thought Laocoonte’ arm should be, which looks a little odd, but once you know the story, it makes sense.

                After walking through the muse room, where there were twenty woman statues that the sculptors would use as inspiration, we walked into the most expensive room in the museum. Besides having another rare bronze statue of Hercules, there was a giant bathtub in the center of the room made entirely of red granite called porphyry, which was worth a trillion Euros per ounce. The bathtub had belonged to one of the emperors. This type of granite is no longer found in the natural world. After seeing the goddess of fertility, a statue with glass eyes, and some marble statues of saints, we started making our way towards the Rafael rooms. On the way was a painting that changed my view on a certain food, croissants. The painting was by a Polish painter who was painted a scene of a battle between Austria and Poland. The Muslim crescent moon was the Poland army’s symbol. When the Polish army finally left Austria in peace, an Austrian baker made fluffy, crescent shaped bread called croissants resembling the crescent moon he had seen everywhere while the Polish occupied Austria. So, it was not the French, nor was it the Italians who invented the croissant. It was an Austrian.

                We entered the Rafael rooms to a remarkable display of his best work. The first room was the Constantine Room, named so because the paintings covered the rise of Constantine. In the next room we skimmed his paintings of life in Rome. One of these was a painting of a fire. The houses were being emptied, and men were diving in through the flames and bringing out babies. In the back, though, was one of the only existing references to the old St. Peter’s Basilica. The last room contained the most familiar painting by Rafael, School of Athens. All of the famous ancient Roman and Greek thinkers and artists are pictured here.

                 Our final stop was the whole reason we came to the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel. The only way you can get to the Sistine Chapel is through the Vatican Museums. After wolfing down the granola bars, apples, and Panini that we brought in with us, we walked into the Sistine Chapel. Wow. We walked into the chapel and were engulfed in silence. A uniformed guard stood near the altar and when the murmur of the crowd got too loud for his liking, he would shout, “Silenzio! Silence!”

                The ceiling was a series of paintings of scenes from the Old Testament. The separating of light and dark, the separation of land and sea, and the making of man were in the top center of the ceiling. The paintings on the walls around the room were of stories of Jesus’ life and other inspiring stories from the Bible. Then there was the Judgment Day mural over the altar. Everything was so realistic and bright and colorful.

                However, just standing, looking up for two minutes, my neck started to ache. I just couldn’t believe that Michelangelo spent the last decade of his life unwillingly painting this huge building. He actually had never painted before in his life. Michelangelo had been set up by some of his rivals who were determined to see him fail. He was a sculptor, poet, architect, and engineer, but not a painter. But, the ever stubborn Michelangelo was just as determined to prove them wrong. And I think that he did quite a good job at it. But I did notice that the bodies were abnormally thick. This was because he was a sculptor, and therefore looked at the human body and its anatomy much differently than painters do. We spent about a half hour in there, listening to Brian quietly point out highlights and the guards continuously yelling, “Silenzio! Silence!” On the way out, as we were waddling through the crowd, we heard a little boy shout out, “There’s too much people here, Daddy!” I turned around for one last view of the Sistine Chapel and then was hustled out.

                The line for seeing St. Peter’s Basilica stretched all the way around St. Peter’s square. And we were at the end of it, so we decided to skip the basilica for today and go get some gelato. Sounds good to me. This gelato shop is the best. It’s the cheapest, and it gives the largest gelato servings in Rome. The single cone has three flavors, and they add whipped cream upon request for free. After that, we went home for dinner and then relaxed for the rest of the day before heading to bed after a very full, educational, and exhausting day.