The Grandeur of Rome

Tuesday morning, we woke to another sunny day, packed our bags, and said goodbye to “Alice in Wonderland”, and dragged our luggage to Lepanto subway station. We went to Termini (the Rome version of Union Station), to check our luggage while we spent our last few hours in Rome. We checked the departures, and knew we had to be back for the 3:15 train to Florence.

We arrived at the Colosseo subway stop, and reaching the top of the escalator, we looked through the doors, and WHAM, right across the road, larger than life, was the Colosseum. Pictures of the Colosseum do not do justice to the enormity of your sense of awe and wonder, as you stand before it.

It is as colossal as its name implies, and the grandeur of the architectural achievement just reinforces the feeling that you are standing in the birthplace of civilization. We decided to have breakfast in the subway station café, where we had cappuccino (OMG, the cappuccino in Italy is sublime) and shared a palmier.

We then crossed the street to gaze at the Colosseum, and your imagination takes flight, imposing historical scenes on the reality in front of you, and you can hear the roar of the crowd as the watch gladiators fight in mortal combat….It was glorious to be standing in the vestiges of ancient Rome.







Our view, at breakfast.

We really wanted to go inside, but with a hone hour line-up to get in, our limited amount of time left in Rome meant that we would not get to see anything else.

Not far away is the Arch of Constantine, and the Roman forum.

The pillars form part of the ruins of the Temple of Venus and Rome

We thought we were heading toward the forum, but while we could see it behind an iron fence, we could not get in, but we did walk into the courtyard of a church called the Santa Francesca Romana (more info at Church of St. Frances of Rome).

With a plain, crumbling brick exterior,  we almost didn't bother going in but decided we might as well check out the inside after climbing up a hill to get there. Behind the church are the ruins of the Temple of Venus and Rome. We had first taken a few pictures in the portico (part of  the travertine facade by Carlo Lombardi (1615), which was beautiful. In we went, with few expectations.

Our jaws dropped in amazement at the  interior. Every inch of floor, ceiling, and wall was drenched in colour and architectural splendor. Intricate tile patterns covered the floor, the ceiling was stunningly painted, and the side chapel walls were hung with Gothic art. Behind the altar was a beautiful mosaic. It was unbelievable, especially to think we almost didn’t go inside.

Reaching the nave, we saw a sign indicating that down a flight of stairs we would find the body of Saint Francesca, so we decided to go down. I was assuming there would be a tomb or an effigy, but no, they literally meant the body of Saint Francesca (also known as Saint Frances of Rome, whol lived from 1384-1440, and was canonized in 1608; for more info see Frances of Rome ). There, in a glassed-in alcove, lay the skeleton of Saint Francesca, dressed in a nun’s habit, including shoes, with her bony fingers clutching an open Bible. I didn’t run out immediately, but I didn’t linger either. It was fascinating in a creepy way. I suppose for some, you would feel a sense of reverence in the presence of relics like this, but I was pretty glad to get back upstairs.

Behind the altar is The Madonna Glycophilousa (Our Lady of the Tenderness), which according to Wikipedia "is an early 5th century Hodegetria [which literally means "She who shows the way"; which is Mary pointing at Jesus as the source of salvation for all manking], brought from Santa Maria Antiqua. [which is another church devoted to St. Mary in the Roman Forum]." Here is what I found fascinating: "The twelfth century Madonna and Child that had been painted over it was meticulously detached in 1950 from the panel and is now kept in the sacristy." I would like to have seen that, but didn't know.  How amazing is that?! Here is my unimpressive photo of the icon.

From there we went in search of the Church of the Gesu, via the road running alongside the ruins of the Roman Forum. Again, we felt such a sense of the enormity of Roman cultural and architectural achievement, and the impact of seeing part of a column which has fallen over.

There were red poppies everywhere in the grass growing among the ruins, which again created a blend of new life with ancient history, and you become aware of the march of time and wonder what will be left of our civilization two thousand years from now. I don’t think anything can every compare with the  height of power in Rome.

This part of the forum ends by Trajan’s column, a beautiful relief-carved pillar.











Nearby, the immense white marble monument erected in honour of Victor Emmanuel, “ll Vittoriano” . (Our guide book has this to say about it:….also known as the Altare della Patria. Begun in 1885 to commemorate Italian unification and honour Victor Emmanuel II, it incorporates the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as well as a museum dedicated to the unification of Italy.) Prior to this, Italy was a collection of kingdoms, I guess. Victor Emmanuel was the King of Sardinia, and well, I don’t know much about the unification wars, but I think they ended in 1861, with just two kingdoms “unconquered”. So Victor Emmanuel is considered the Father of Italy.

We had such a whirlwind tour of Rome, it was obviously impossible to see everything, but one of Barb’s main quests was to see the Church of the Gesu, which turned out to be just a few blocks away from the Altare della Patria. Barb had studied the artwork here during her course of study in art history, and I was happy to have her lead the way on this trip to Italy, having been here twice before, I had no agenda, and we really just wanted to soak up as much atmosphere as possible and not to feel like “Rome was the place where we saw the yellow dog,” (as the reverend Mr. Eager says in A Room With a View), where travelers get caught up in “an inextricable whirl…handed about like a parcel of goods from ….Florence to Rome…. So if it meant we missed a few things here and there, so be it, we knew we would come back some day. So no, on this trip we did not see St. Peter’s Basilica, or the Vatican Museums, since they need a day or two all on their own.

The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesu is in the Piazza del Gesu, and its construction was begun in 1568. The  façade is considered the first example of baroque architecture, and the rest of the church looks fairly unassuming from the outside, other than the dome at the top of the building, we weren’t actually sure this was a church at all. The interior is a glorious combination of breathtaking architecture, and the frescoed ceiling and cupola  by Giovanni Battista Gaulli,   and sculptures by Rinaldi, and many more artists contributing their awe-inspiring skills. I am always amazed when I am a church (especially in Europe), by the pinnacle of human achievement attained in honour of the glory of God, and were the artists really as faithful or was it just a job?

Anyway, the Wikipedia article provides a lot of information and better photos than I was able to get in the short time we were in there (since we were all made to leave about ten minutes later, and we kicked ourselves for just wandering around outside in the piazza for ten or fifteen minutes before we made our way into the church).  

 Since we had just taken a few pictures before sitting down to drink it all in, we unfortunately did not get many photos. Since my camera does not do well in dim places, here are the few shots I took which are not a great representation of  the magnificence you feel in person.

Our final tourist goal was to see the Bocca della Verita (“A round piece of marble once used as an ancient manhole vover, the Mouth of Truth is one of Rome’s great curiositities. According to legend, if you put your heand in the carved mouth and tell al ie, it will bite your hand off. It lives in the portico of the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Cosmedin”).

We waited about half an hour for our chance to photograph it, only once per person is allowed. Barb took a great shot of it on its own, while I took a photo with her in it, with her camera, so no pics of my own for this one. We knew we had to get going to make it back to the subway on tie. My navigation skills have really sucked this trip, but I think the maps are a huge problem, not to mention the fact that every block on every street has a different name, or it is the same name but changes direction, It gets confusing. So, we started going in the wrong direction and had to back track and walk past the “Circus Maximus” which was not particularly exciting, a giant field of gravel and grass, which was probably impressive once upon a time if you were there to watch a chariot race or something, but now just feels like the longest walk to a subway stop in history. In fact, we were walking alongside a cliff to our left, which turned out to be the Palatine Hill, and would have been very impressive. Next time!

 We arrived at Termini with about thirty minutes to retrieve our luggage, buy our tickets, and find our platform. We made it on board the train to Florence with five minutes to spare. We were about to have one of our worst meals ever in Italy, but we did not expect much from the train food. The prosciutto sandwich was inedible for me, and the tomato and pesto was a slight improvement. I didn't bother taking photos of it. 

We were sad to say arrivederci to Roma, but excited to greet Firenze!!

There are a few more photos in my FB album for this day FB photo album, Rome Day 2.