July 1

The trip home.

This morning Katie, Jacob, Kylee, and I woke up really early and took the 7:20 am shuttle to the airport. Once we got there, Kylee and I got separated from Katie and Jacob pretty quickly because they were in a different terminal than we were. Kylee and I both didnt have a flight for at least four hours, so it was too early to check in. We took the escalator upstairs, and got some breakfast. We both had the typical croissant and Kylee also had some coffee.

After sitting there for about an hour, we both went downstairs, separated, and then checked in.

The five, long and lonely hours I had to wait in the airport finally passed, and it was time to board my plane! I got on my plane and everything was going well, but we did not take off for 40 minutes after we were scheduled to. So after we took off, the flight was not that bad, but I could not get myself to fall asleep, so I basically just watched movies and played solitaire the entire time.

We finally landed in Montreal, but they did not have a gate for us because we got in late because of our delayed take off. We ended up sitting on our plane for another hour before we were able to get a gate. The entire time we were sitting on the plane waiting for a gate, I was starting to freak out because it kept getting closer and closer to my take off time for my next flight to Chicago. I was supposed to have a 1 hour and 45 minute layover, but I did not get off the plane till 10 minutes before my flight was supposed to leave. I get off and try to hurry to customs, I have five minutes left at this point, but there was no one there. Many people were trying to rush to another flight because our previous one had been so delayed, but apparently there was no representative there from Air Canada, so they couldn't let us go through.

Thankfully, I had turned my phone on and gotten a text from the airline that said my flight was delayed an hour! If that flight had not been delayed, I do not know when I would have gotten home. After the short flight from Montreal to Chicago, I was picked up and finally home!

June 30

Final day in Roma.

Today, I really did not do that much. Most everyone left already except for Katie, Jacob, Kylee, and myself. Basically, most of what I did today was pack and attempt to weigh my bag (but it was too big for the scale) because I did not want my luggage to be above the weight limit! That would have been such a disaster.

Other things I did today.

1. I ran some errands with Katie. She did not need anything, but she kindly went with me! I had some extra euros in cash to spend, so I bought a pair of sandals and pasta. I also bought a charm for my charm bracelet. Ever since I was little I have been getting charms from wherever I vacation, so I could not change that now!

2. Pack, pack, and pack.

3. Katie and I went to this restaurant in Trestevere we had found in the very beginning of trips. Whenever we wanted to go out to dinner and just talk about everything, we would go on "dates" and go there together. The food was so good there, and it was so cheap! I wish I could remember the name of it!

After dinner, we got back, and pretty much finished packing and got ready for bed! We spent the rest of the night just on our computers and making sure we had everything together!

It was a great extra day to have in Rome to get situated before I went home.

June 29

Last day with everyone in Roma :(

Today, most of the day was just spent relaxing, starting to pack, and just walking around the city. It was also the last day we went to the Billa, which was actually very sad.

For our final dinner together, we went to a restaurant called something like "Beautiful Napoli", which was just very ironic seeing what our experience was there. None the less, it was an amazing dinner and it was just great to have time to spend together.

Us all at dinner!

After dinner, we went to St. Peters square, and sat together and just wrapped things up. Seb, Sister, and a couple other people just said their thoughts on the trip and how thankful they were to be there. Everything that everyone said was just really touching and actually made some people cry! (myself included)

Roomies!!

Sister, Lauren, and me!

Just sitting in a circle talking.

After our talk, we just sat in St. Peters square for another hour, just enjoying being there and with each other. Surprisingly, fireworks just happened to go off. It was literally the perfect ending to the perfect trip.

June 26-28

FLORENCE!!

After waking up and walking to the bus stop so we could take the bus to the train station, we found out that the bus workers were on strike. Great. Everyone, well mostly the teachers, were really stressed about it because they did not know what was going to happen next. It seemed like we could not get through one day of travel without something going wrong. We ended up having to split into two groups and take the bus from Siena to Florence. Although the bus ride was not very comfortable, I thought taking the bus all the way there was pretty amazing because we were able to see more of Tuscany than we would have if we were on the train. Once we got there, we pulled out the iPad map and walked to the hotel.

Here is Michelle and I waiting in the lobby of the hotel.

Again, since we did so much in Florence, I will just talk about a highlight.

One of the highlights in Florence was going to Dante and Beatrice's church.

On a side street right off of via del Corso, we found Dante and Beatrice’s church. Walking into this church, was definitely a different experience than the other churches we had visited. Prior to this church, we had visited ones like St. Peters Basilica, Santa Maria del Fiore, Santa Maria del Poppolo, and other Catholic churches that looked very extravagant as you walked in. So, even after my first step in to the church, I noticed that it was very small, bare, and not as well lit as some of the others. As you step into the church, one of the first things you notice are the pews on either side of the aisle you are now walking in. Each side only has about four pews which actually only seat two or three people each, so this gives you an idea of how small it was. Once you walk all the way to the front of the pews, you see the tombs on either side of the church. On the left of it is the “pietra tombale di Beatrice Portinari”, or the tomb for Beatrice Portinari, and it is said that she has been buried here since June 8, 1291. There is not much to the tomb, just something on the wall which tells what it is, a concrete rectangle distinguishing where it is, and two small concrete columns on either side. Flowers had been set in the middle, and there were two baskets on the left side of the tomb. After a closer examination, we realized that in the baskets were love letters to Beatrice, probably describing love and the everlasting power of it.

While standing in the very front of the church, you realize that there really is not much there. There is a huge window on the very top of the wall letting light in, a crucifix, and a painting of the Madonna and the Four Saints by Neri di Bicci. Once you stand there for a minute, you realize you have seen most of it, and then turn around. As you start to walk back towards the door you came in, you realize that there are a couple pictures of Dante and Beatrice around the church, which were actually really nice to see because you could see how they were both depicted. What was just described was basically the entirety of the church, but the stories of Dante and Beatrice made the experience so much more meaningful.

The church.
The tomb of Beatrice.

Sitting in the church!

Another part I loved was just sitting on the bridge waiting for sunset. There were so many people there, and everyone was just having a good time and waiting for the same thing. This seems to be a common theme on our trip to Assisi, Siena, and Florence, but everyone was just having a good time just sitting there with each other and just having a good time.
Everyone sitting by the river waiting for sunset.

June 24-26

SIENA!

Assisi was nice, but it was the type of place that you go to enjoy the landscape and not stay there for more than a day or to. So being in Siena was almost the best of both worlds! It was still very small, but there was more to do and see there.

We woke up the morning of the 24th and traveled to Siena. We had been hearing a lot about it because Seb would tell us how much he loved it there. Once we got there, we literally walked through the entire city of Siena that was inside the walls to our hotel. We stayed there for a little while to get settled in, and then went out to get oriented to the city. For the next couple days, we did so much walking through the city and shopping, I am just going to talk of my favorite excursion.

My favorite one of our excursions was going to the Siena Duomo. This Duomo was just so different than any other Cathedral we had previously been in.

"The Duomo's unique black-and-white striped campanile dates from 1313, but reflects the Romanesque style. The tall, square belltower has increasing numbers of round-headed arcades with each level and culminates in a pyramid-shaped roof."

"The impressive vault of the library, also painted by Pinturicchio (c.1502), is ornately decorated with grotesques, scenes from classical mythology, and a variety of putti, satyrs, nymphs and tritons. The three large squares in the center depict the Rape of Proserpine, the Piccolomini coat of arms, and Diana and Endymion."

"The nave arcades, with rest on pillars with engaged columns of black and white marble, are very tall with round arches. There is no triforium. The walls of the clerestory have black-and-white stripes to match the pillars. Some of the nave capitals, which feature phytomorphic sculptures, are though to have been sculpted by Giovanni Pisano while he worked on the pulpit in the 1260s."

I really loved Siena! I would definitely go back. I think we could have spent a day or two more there, but that is about it. However, for our purposes, I think we spend the right amount of time there, and I am really happy we were able to go there!

June 23

We woke up to be ready at 6:30 am to leave for the Termini. It was finally time to travel north, and our first stop was Assisi. After a crazy morning of seeing threats written on the walls in black tape outside of my room, we left for the Termini. Although we missed a train and had to run for another one, we FINALLY made it to Assisi!! This is the part of the trip that everyone had been looking forward to since the very beginning!

Once we arrived at our hotel, no one could get over how amazing the view was. We stood there for so long just taking in the sight of the beautiful landscape and taking pictures.

Once we all got settled in, we made our way to the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi. St. Francis is buried there, and we got to go downstairs and see this tomb and pay respects. I actually was not sure who he was when we got there, so I asked Lauren and Katie to explain to me who he was. I thought it was really interesting, so I looked him up more after the matter.

http://www.assisionline.com/assisi__162.html - this is a website I used to get more information

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYA55l3QQlM - here you can get a virtual tour of the basilica!

After looking around the Basilica for a while, some of us went back to the hotel to change and just relax for about half an hour. While we were sitting there, we decided to go out and get some dinner. So Lauren, Jacob, Katie, Kylee and Antonia went out to explore Assisi. We saw some great shops while we were walking around, and we found a nice little place to get some food. The most amazing part was our location. No one really cared what we were doing or what we were eating, but the face that we were finally just sitting in Assisi was amazing. After we ate, we were walking back and found this AMAZING pastry shop. We spent at least fifteen minutes in there just looking around and trying to decide what to get.

Once we got back to the hotel, we just sat outside and talked while enjoying the view. We must have sat out there for at least four hours that day.

As we were sitting there, people slowly kept coming back from their day in Assisi and joined us out there. Once it was about 9:00 at night, we were all there and just relaxing and having a good time, even though we were all exhausted. It was a really fun time to have the whole group together. At 9:30 (ish) we walked to a higher point and saw the stars.

Such an amazing ending to an amazing day.

June 22

Today, the whole group had to wake up early because we were going to be part of the papal audience and hear a mass given by Pope Benedict! We all walked over to St. Peter's basilica together so we would get there around 8:30 am. Mass did not start till 10:30, so we all knew we were going to have to wait there for a while if we wanted to get good seats. So, once we got there we sat down, and after about ten minutes we all realized how hot it was going to be just sitting in the sun. The heat was insane, an umbrella may or may not have been pulled out in order to try to get shade from the sun. At 10:30, Pope Benedict rode out on his famous "Pope Mobile" and made his rounds through the audience. The Pope waved to us, no big deal. (Just kidding, it's a huge deal!)

The most interesting part of attending the mass was being able to hear Pope Benedict speak so many different languages. He spoke italian, english, french, spanish, portugese, german, polish, and there might have even be more! Since the Pope is german and lives in Italy, I assumed he would know german and italian (and also english I guess) but I never really thought about how he would have to know so many languages to be the Pope! It was amazing to hear, and that was definitely my favorite part of the mass!

June 20

Today, since many of the museums in Rome were closed, Kristen and I decided to wake up early, well around nine, and go to see Caravaggio paintings.

The first church we went to was San Luigi dei Francesi where we saw three different Caravaggio paintings.

1. The Calling of St. Matthew:

The painting depicts the story from the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 9:9): Jesus saw a man named Matthew at his seat in the custom house, and said to him, "Follow me", and Matthew rose and followed him. In this painting, the gloom and the canvassed window appears to situate the table indoors. Christ brings the true light to the dark space of the sitting tax-collectors. This painting records the collision of two worlds — the ineluctable power of the immortal faith, and the mundane, foppish, world of Levi. Jesus spears him with a beam of light, with an apparent effortless hand gesture he exerts an inescapable sublime gravity, with no need for wrenching worldly muscularity. Jesus' bare feet are classical simplicity in contrast with the dandified accountants; being barefoot may also symbolize holiness, as if one is on holy ground. Similarly to his treatment of Paul in the Conversion on the Way to Damascus, Caravaggio chronicles the moment when a daily routine is interrupted by the miraculous. Around the man to become Matthew are either the unperceptive or unperturbed bystanders.

2. The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew

The painting shows the martyrdom of Saint Matthew the Evangelist, author of the Gospel of Matthew. According to tradition, the saint was killed on the orders of the king of Ethiopia while celebrating Mass at the altar. The king lusted after his own niece, and had been rebuked by Matthew, for the girl was a nun, and therefore the bride of Christ. Cardinal Contarelli, who had died several decades earlier, had laid down very explicitly what was to be shown: the saint being murdered by a soldier sent by the wicked king, some suitable architecture, and crowds of onlookers showing appropriate emotion. (See the article on the Contarelli Chapel).

3. Saint Matthew and the Angel

After san Luigi, we decided to go to church of Sant'Agostino because there was another Caravaggio painting and we were already really close.

Here we saw the Madonna di Loreto

It depicts the apparition of the barefoot virgin and naked child to two peasants on a pilgrimage; or as some say it is the quickening of the iconic statue of the Virgin.

June 19

We decided to get an early start today and visit the Etruscan museum. Katie, Kristen, Michelle, Jacob and I all met up at 9:30 and took bus 19 to the museum. This museum is absolutely enormous. You could easily spend a few hours there looking at everything, but after a while it does all seem to look pretty similar. So many pots! It is amazing how they were able to do such a good job putting everything back together and keeping it in such good condition.

Here are a few things I learned:

1. The genre of the deceased can be detected from the grave goods. Male tombs are characterized by hut urns and objects that represent war and hunting. Where as the women's tombs are characterized by candles, whorls, distaffs, reels and elements used to hold fabric.

2. A distinctive element of Vulci funerary art is the intent to reproduce the physical aspects of the deceased who were cremated: the ossuary is sometimes sealed with a ball-like lid suggesting a head.

3. Since the beginning of the 7th century B.C., the most important families established their power. The monumental tumuli of cerveteri necropolises were 20-60 meters wide and 12-15 meters high. These imitated modes from the near east and contained several rooms containing the deceased of different generations. External stairs made the tomb accessible for ceremony. The grave goods are characterized by rare and valuable luxury objects.

June 18

Today was a very much needed day. We were back in Rome, home as we call it, and we were able to just relax and catch up on sleep and work. Besides going to the Billa for some food, that is all I did: sleep and catch up on work. At six, we did have class though. In religion, one of the things we talked about was the Roman Domus.

First is the entryway, which has guard dogs, mosaics, frescos of something that would ward away evil (snake, fallis). Then the first major room is the atrium. Then there is the tablinum where the head of the household would sit at his desk. Early Christians would gather in the peristylium after a meal because it would be cool and would fir 30-60 people comfortably.

This is what Dr. Bednarz' weebley says about the Domus:

Roman rich house or domus, was the usual housing for important people in each city. Perfectly described by architects, it was endowed with a structure based on distribution through porticated patios: the entry
Roman domus. Fauces- gives access to a small corridor -vestibulum-. It leads to a porticated patio -atrium-. Its center, the impluvium, is a bank for the water falling from the compluvium. At both sides -alae- there are many chambers used as rooms for service slaves, kitchens and latrines. At the bottom, thetablinum or living-room can be found, and close to it, thetriclinium or dining-room. This atrium gave also light enough to next rooms. At both sides of the tablinum, little corridors led to the noble part of the domus. Second porticated patio peristylium, was bigger and endowed with a central garden. It was surrounded by rooms -cubiculum- and marked by an exedra used as a chamber for banquets or social meetings. Weather or available room caused that houses had one or two floors. These chambers were -tabernae-: little shops belonging to the domus or else rented to other merchants.

June 15-17

June 15: finally the day that we got to venture out of Rome for a few days. We woke up early, got ready and packed, went downstairs, and then we all went to the Termini so we could catch a train out to Napoli. We got a fast train to Napoli around nine in the morning. Even though we all enjoyed how fast the train was, I am sure we all wished that it was longer so we could take a longer nap. When we arrived in Napoli, things looked different immediately. Compared to Rome, the city was dirtier, smellier, there was garbage everywhere, there were more young families and there were more overweight people. It was obvious that there was a lot more poverty there than in Rome. After we got lost, went to the hotel and put our things down, and got lost again we finally made it to the train station (another one, not the same one we arrived at) and met the archeologist. We took a 45 minute train ride out to Pompeii. Once we were out in Pompeii, we went to a house that was being excavated by archeologists. I think that the most interesting things that were in the house were fresco's that were still in such good condition. These were much larger and better preserved than others that we had seen. It is amazing to think about how old they are but are still in such good condition.

After we looked around this house, we went into the actual city of Pompeii. Pictures courtesy of google images:

Pompeii is a Roman city and is partially buried because it was destroyed and completely buried when the volcano Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. No one discovered Pompeii again until 1749.

The part I remember the best is the places that served soup. We saw two different places that people would go to and get their soup, this was usually for the poor. I thought this was really cool because when you think back to ancient times, you never really think of them having restaurant places.

After we walked around Pompeii for a while, we took the train back to Napoli, stopped at a bank, got dinner, then returned to the hotel.

June 16: Blue Capri. We as a group decided as a group to wake up fairly early, so we would have the whole day to spend at the beach. After we all were ready, we walked to the port so we could take a ferry out to Capri. Once we got there, most of us immediately bought tickets and went on another smaller boat so we could go to the blue grado. When we got back, about an hour and a half later, we students go a bite to eat and then went to the beach and spent the rest of the time on the island there. It was so much fun just relaxing and being there together. Unfortunately, after our lovely day at the beach, Lauren got attacked by a man on a vespa who tried to mug her. (We are all happy you're okay Lauren!)

June 17: Because of the events of the night before, none of us felt safe in Napoli anymore. Our professors and Dominica (as well as other students) did such a good job handling the situation, and we were able to get train tickets out of Napoli (to Rome) early in the day instead of waiting for night.

June 14

Today we took a day trip outside of Rome to the port of Ostia Antica. Ostia Antica was a working port town, and today you can even see the warehouses, apartments, mansions, shopping centers, the 2,000 year old theater, and baths that were once part of the active port of around 60,000 people. What we saw today was an excavated city that once was very active.

Ostia Antica is located at the mouth of the Tiber and was founded in about 620 B.C. As Rome was beginning to expand, Ostia was conquered and a fort was built there. It then turned into a naval base so Rome would be protected by invasion via the river. The importance of the base turned from military to commercial to around A.D 150 when Rome controlled the Mediterranean. Ostia Antica remained a busy center and big businesses would come and there were millions of Romans. As Rome fell, however, the port became abandoned and the Tiber retreated to about a mile away because the harbor sited up.

I would say that my favorite part was seeing the baths of neptune. In the Baths of Neptune, you can see a mosaic with Neptune riding four horses through the sea. There also is cupid riding the dolphin which looked nice, but the sea itself looked pretty frightening. Although not all of the mosaic is still in tact, it is amazing that so much of it is still in pretty good condition.

June 13

This was the first day we had a "student excursion" day. So Katie, Jacob, Kristen and I decided that we were going to go to the Etruscan museum. We left around 11 in the morning for the museum. We were originally going to take a bus there, but we were not exactly sure which line to take, so we ended up going to the metro and taking it one stop to Piazza di Poppolo. We got off the metro, but we still had a little ways to walk before we got there. After about ten or fifteen minutes of walking, we got to the museum to find that it was closed. Katie had picked up a magazine at St. John's that included a list of sights to see while in Rome. As we were looking at this, we realized that many things were closed on Mondays. After five to ten minutes of trying to figure out what to do, we decided that we should go to the Jewish museum, which was in Trestevere. So, we took a bus (19) back to Loponto, where St. John's is, and then we caught another bus (280) to take us into Trestevere right by the museum.

The Jewish museum of Rome has about 800 textiles, and some are in the museum and some are actually still

being used in Synagogues today. Christianization of the Roman Empire began in 312 with the Emperor Constantine

and reached its peak in the West in the end of 476. In Rome, Power gradually passed into the hands of the local

bishop, the Pope and the city remained under papal rule until 1870. Administration against the Roman Jews began

in that period. At times however, they had illustrious protectors, such as Gregory the Great (590-604). The pope

declared that Jews were not to be disturbed because they were to be converted with persuasion and not with force.

June 12

Today we went to the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva church. This is Rome's only gothic church. The roof is not rounded like it usually is, but it has edges (see pictures above). But, and important reason why we went to this church is because Catherine of Siena died here and was buried here. In the front of the church you can see her tomb. Here is a website that does not say that much more about the church, but it has some amazing pictures that would be very worth while to look at.

http://www.paradoxplace.com/Perspectives/Rome%20&%20Central%20Italy/Rome/Rome_Churches/Santa_Maria_sopra_Minerva/Santa_Maria_sopra_Minerva.htm

After we looked around the church, we had the option of whether or not we wanted to go to mass. Since I am not Catholic, I decided that I would pass on going to mass and I walked home. This was the first time that I was really in Rome by myself. I had walked to the Billa (grocery store) and back before, but this was the furthest I had been. It was so relaxing and enjoyable to just walk throughout Rome by myself. I knew my way back very well because I had done similar walks many times before, but still, this was the first time I was truly alone. I walked back to St. John's, put some of my stuff down and then decided to go to the Billa and get something for lunch. I think today was one of my favorite days because I did everything by myself and did not rely on anyone else to help me.

June 11

Today we ventured out of the central part of Rome and visited the Catacomb di San Callisto. We took the metro first and then got on bus 118 to get to San Callisto. Once we got there, we walked to buy the tickets, and sat outside and waited for our tour. It was much colder today than the previous days, and not many of us were prepared so we were all pretty cold! As we begin our tour, the tour guide first takes us to a board outside the catacomb and explains the six christian symbols and other facts about the catacombs, many of which we already knew because of our first catacomb visit. The six christian symbols are an anchor, a dove, the good shepherd, a fish, and the orante. San Callisto was different than the catacomb we had previously seen because there were actual places for worship within this catacomb. "Tunnels and galleries on four levels is a maze of niches still open or walled custom made and designed for a simple burial, without cash but only in a sheet, sarcophagi and crypts, cubicles, epitaphs and carvings, the remains of oil lamps and vases containing perfumes. During the visit falls only on the second floor, undoubtedly the most interesting from an archaeological point of view. Now we find the copy of a statue of the fourth century preserved in the Vatican Museum, depicting the Good Shepherd, a symbol of Christ’s love. Among the other images, belonging to the vast symbolism devised by Christians during the persecution, when their religion was declared a “a strange religion” with the decree of 35 senators.You can see the Crypt of the Popes where the faithful descended on a pilgrimage to honor the martyrs. Continuing on, you can see the Crypt of St Cecilia where to place the coffin containing the body of the patron saint of music, now housed in the Basilica of St. Cecilia in Trastevere, there is a copy of a famous sculpture of 1599, the Cubicles of the Sacraments, five small rooms where you retain some of the oldest frescoes of Christian era, representing precisely the most important sacraments in the Christian faith: baptism and the ‘ Eucharist. Crypt of St. Eusebius, smaller but decorated with marble slabs on which are three arches, one of which contained the tomb of the saint." (http://www.hoteldesartistes.com/rome-travel-guide/2010/11/the-san-callisto-catacombs/)

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June 10

Today was a pretty light day, we just went to the Vatican museum. I thought the museum was a little frustrating because there were so many tours going on that day and I did not know what a lot of the things in the museum were. My favorite part was going to see the Sistine Chapel. My high school italian teacher always talked about Michaelangelo and the Sistine Chapel, so it was amazing to be able to actually go and see it. Once I got there, I realized that I did not actually know that much information about it, so later on I looked up more information about it, and this is what I found.

Here is some history.

"The Sistine Chapel was commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV, from whom it derives its name, in 1475. It was designed to be - and still is - the pope's chapel and the site of papal elections. The Sistine Chapel was consecrated and dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin on August 15, 1483.

In 1481 Sixtus IV called to Rome the Florentine painters Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli and the Perugian Pietro Perugino to decorate the walls with frescoes. Luca Signorelli may have also been involved in the decoration. The fresco project took only 11 months, from July 1481 to May 1482.

The Sistine ceiling was originally painted by Piero Matteo d'Amelia, who included a star-spangled sky. But in 1508 Pope Julius II della Rovere commissionedMichelangelo to repaint the ceiling.

Michelangelo was called away from his work on the pope's own tomb and was he not happy about the change. He had always insisted he was a sculptor and was contemptuous of fresco painting. The result are glorious depictions of human bodies that could only be created by a sculptor, and the project Michelangelo hated so much (at least at first) ironically became his most well-known work.

Michelangelo was asked to paint the Twelve Apostles and a few ornaments on the ceiling of the chapel. But as he began work on the project, Michelangelo conceived grander designs and ended up painting more than 300 figures.

He worked on the project between 1508 and October 31, 1512, in cramped conditions high on a scaffolding and under continous pressure from the pope to hurry up. The project would permanently damage the artist's eyesight.

Michelangelo was in his 60s when he was called back to the chapel, again against his wishes, to paint The Last Judgment (1535-1541) on the altar wall. The work was commissioned by Pope Clement VII (1523-1534) shortly before his death, and Clement's successor, Pope Paul III Farnese (1534-1549), forced Michelangelo to complete it quickly. It was the largest fresco of the century and is still an unquestioned masterpiece.

For important ceremonies, the lowest portions of the Sistine Chapel's side walls were covered with a series of tapestries depicting events from the Gospels and Acts. These were designed by Raphael and woven in 1515-19 at Brussels.

In recent decades, the Sistine Chapel has been carefully cleaned and restored, beginning with the 15th-century wall frescoes in 1965. The cleaning and restoration of the lunettes, the ceiling and the Last Judgment, a painstaking process using computer analysis, lasted from 1980 to 1994. The restoration included removing several of the "modesty" drapes that had been added over some of the nude figures.

The end result of the restoration has been controversial: Critics say a vital second layer of paint was removed, and argue that many of the restored figures seem flat compared with the originals, which had more shadow and detail. Others have hailed the project for saving Michelangelo's masterpiece for future generations to appreciate and for revealing the vibrancy of his color palette."

more at: http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/rome-sistine-chapel

June 9

Bright and early in the morning, we headed off to the Galleria Borghese where would be able to see some statues by Bernini. I'm going to talk about my favorite Bernini statue I saw, Hades and Persephone. This statue is amazing. I would encourage anyone who goes to Rome to take a trip to the Borghese Gallery just to see this. The amount of detail is incredible. One part of the statue that really stood out to me, and probably everyone who sees the statue, is the area where Hades is grabbing Persephone's thigh. It looks exactly as how it would if you saw someone actually grabbing someone's flesh with force like that. It's incredible to think that someone was able to perfect such a delicate task. Also, just in case no one knows the greek mythology of this story (I didn't) here it is:

Persephone was the daughter of the goddess Demeter. One day Persephone was dancing with her friends in a sunny meadow, having a good time, picking flowers.

Suddenly Persephone's spooky uncle Hades burst out of the ground and grabbed her and pulled her into his chariot! He took Persephone (purr-SEFF-oh-nee) under the ground to his kingdom, the land of the dead, and told her that he wanted her to be the Queen of the Underworld and marry him.
Persephone was very sad there under the ground. She wanted to go up into the sunshine again. But Hades would not let her. Persephone was so sad that she would not eat nor drink.

Meanwhile, back up in the land of the living, Persephone's mother Demeter was looking everywhere for her and could not find her. She cried and cried. Finally she went to her brother Zeus, who was also Persephone's father, and asked him to help find Persephone. Zeus, sitting way up there on top of Mount Olympus, was able to see where Persephone was. He told Hades to give her back.

But Hades said he would only give Persephone back if she had really not eaten or drunk anything from the land of the dead. Persephone had not eaten much, but it turned out she HAD eaten six pomegranate seeds. So they agreed that Persephone could spend six months a year above ground with her mother, but she would have to spend the other six months in the land of the dead with her uncle/husband. And that is how it has been since then, according to the story: that's why we have the seasons.

If you look at Persephone's story another way, you can see that it is a way of talking about how grain grows. Persephone represents the grain. Like grain, she comes up out of the earth in the spring, and dances in the meadow with her friends. Her mother Demeter is glad to see her and makes the sun shine. In the fall, though, Persephone dies as the grain comes ripe and is harvested. She has to go back under the ground again, as men plant the seeds under the ground. Persephone's mother is sad and cries, like the rain in winter. Then every spring she comes up again.

After going to the Galleria Borghese, we proceeded to go to the 250 year old St. Priscilla catacomb. This was the first time that I will have been in a catacomb, so I really did not know what to expect (picture above on left). Although we got there after the catacomb was supposed to close for a couple hours, we were able to get in. A catacomb is an underground cemetery where thousands of people would be buried. In this specific catacomb, there are about 40,000 niches. These catacombs would consist of up to 20 kilometers of space. This catacomb was used to bury people from the second to the fifth century.

June 8

Today we went to the Villa Doria Pamphili. While we were there, we looked at a few pieces of Caravaggio’s work. Two paintings that I specifically remember are “The Flight into Egypt” and “Penitent Magdalena”.

Flight into Egypt:

The Council of Trent issued a number of decrees which prohibited artists from treating many popular legends which were now considered improbable. The story of the Holy Family's flight&emdash;only briefly sketched out in the Biblical account&emdash;survived the strictures of the Council and often appeared in painting from the end of the sixteenth century. Most favored was a representation of the holy family resting, wearing from their travels. Caravaggio's idyllic painting is an individualistic representation of this.

The artist ingeniously uses the figure of an angel playing the violin with his back to the viewer to divide the composition into two parts. On the right, before an autumnal river-front scene, we can see the sleeping Mary with a dozing infant in her left; on the left, a seated Joseph holding the musical score for the angel. Contrasting the unlikelihood of the event is the realistic effect of depiction, the accuracy of details, the trees, the leaves and stones, whereby the total impression becomes astonishingly authentic.

The statue-like figure of the angel, with a white robe draped around him, is like a charmingly shaped musical motif, and it provides the basic tone for the composition. It is an interesting contradiction&emdash;and at the same time a good example for the adaptability of forms.

There is no apparent precedence for a music-playing angel to make an appearance in the story of the flight into Egypt. Charming is Caravaggio's decision to actively involve St Joseph in the music-making.

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/his/CoreArt/art/bar_cvggo_flight.html

Penitent Magdalena:

An evolved Baroque Mary Magdalene is curiously seen in Caravaggio’s uniquely sensitivePenitent Magdalen of 1596-97, now in the Doria Pamphilij Gallery in Rome. Caravaggio’s treatment here is both sympathetic and idiosyncratic but visually correct only in regard to iconographic traditions of the Magdalene, This tradition, however, conflates four gospel texts that may have nothing to do with one composite woman nor do they necessarily all refer to the persona of Mary Magdalene, who is often said in modernity to be degraded into a sexual object of male fantasy.

The iconography Caravaggio employed here is both clever and innovative in many respects for its adherence to biblical text. In Caravaggio’s warm-colored tones bespeaking both her passion and Christ’s Passion, the Magdalene’s most typical visual attribute is the unguent vessel containing nard (Greek ναρδος from Hebrew or Aramaic נרד ) with which she is associated in tradition (rather than clearly supported from text) as having washed Christ’s feet with her sensuously long and lustrous reddish hair – and red is the color of sanguinity - after sacrificially pouring out its precious perfume (although here Caravaggio may be painting in advance of that biblical narrative moment). The same perfume nardus in Latin known from Pliny’s Natural History XXI.70 is probably from the Indian or Near Eastern desert plant Nardostachys jatamansi and is also called spikenard, its liquid color being golden red or orange like the Magdalene’s hair and the golden perfume hue seen here in Caravaggio’s painting. Other attributes are conveyed in the Magdalene’s putative life as a courtesan, implied by rich clothes and extravagant jewelry, and her body language of penitence is marked by her humble position, in this case close to the ground on a very low chair. What the Magdalene renounces in Caravaggio’s image is consonant with what has been noted in typical Pauline testimonia of the modest new woman of God - often suggested as a misogynistic text - who is unadorned by anything but grace: “not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls or expensive clothes” as St. Paul writes in I Timothy 2:9.

Many pictorial details encourage closer inspection. The biblical texts state that the perfume vessel which the woman (Mary Magdalene?) used on Christ – often mistranslated from the Koiné Greek New Testament as being of alabaster stone - was a glass alabastron (Greek ’αλαβαστρον), probably sealed in ampule form against desiccating air and oxidation; terribly expensive because vessel and perfume were to be used only once, the glass needing to be broken to release its perfume inside. Caravaggio depicts a glass vessel here, either deliberately or accidentally in closer accordance with the text, but perhaps better to highlight the gold transparence of the nard perfume as symbolic of the Magdalene’s pouring her life out. On her dress is another vessel or receptacle noted by Cinotti as a possible simile of the Magdalene herself and which she fills here in Caravaggio’s schemata. In this instance, the vessel on her dress bears a shell-like form as possibly representative of the Classical notion that shells (extrapolated from Hesiod’s Theogony) were one of the visual attributes of sea-born Venus to whose sacred cult most courtesans belonged either professionally or by practice as those who live for amor sacer. The perfume vessel shown in two distinct forms may be an accommodation of both traditions: the translucent glass form at her feet and also as an opaque white alabaster form on her dress. Vegetal motifs on her clothing may depict the source of the perfume as floral – and flowers are another attribute of Venus - but could in any case merely indicate the fertility which courtesans explicitly evoke. However one views Caravaggio's Magdalene, on the one hand his naturalism gives us opportunity to agree with Bellori that it is mostly a seated woman who could be anybody and on the other hand to disagree because Caravaggio's iconographic subtlety allows us to identify her by her perfume and hair and almost the moment of penitence when she rejects her former life as a voluptuary as the long traditions suggest.

http://traumwerk.stanford.edu/philolog/2009/03/caravaggios_mary_magdalene_ult.html

June 7

As today was a free day, I decided to take the time to catch up on some sleep and work. Since a lot of people went to the Roman forum, I did some research about the forum and am going to put it on my blog.

The Roman Forum is located in a valley that is between the Palatine hill and the Capitoline hill. It originally was a marsh, but the Romans drained the area and turned it into a center of political and social activity. The Forum was the marketplace of Rome and also the business district and civic center. It was expanded to include temples, a senate house and law courts. When the Roman Empire fell, the Forum became forgotten, buried and was used as a cattle pasture during the Middle Ages. (http://ancient-rome.tripod.com/romanforum/roman_forum.htm)

Also, Since I created my Weebly on Roman Architecture, I am going to post information on here about the Arch of Titus (which by the Fourm).

The Arch of Titus was built at one end of the Roman Forum in the 80's AD to remind people about the Emperor Titus' victories in the war against the Jews in Israel. It is part marble and part travertine. Titus was actually already dead when the arch was built, but Titus' younger brotherDomitian was emperor, and he wanted people to remember his brother Titus. So the inscription has Titus' name on it. (It says, the Senate and the People of Rome, to the Divine Titus, son of the Divine Vespasian, Vespasian Augustus). The letters were originally picked out in shining bronze letters, but the bronze has been stolen away and melted down.

On each side of the fornix, or arch, are engaged fluted columns, the captials of which are the earliest example of the Composite style.
The inside of the arch has relief (raised) carvings showing the victory parade when Titus got back to Rome.
You can see the Roman soldiers carrying a huge menorah (candlestick) which they had taken from the Jews. They are about to go under a triumphal arch.
On the other side, the Emperor Titus (whose head is missing now) rides in a chariot drawn by four horses.
The holes were made by people in the Middle Ages digging out the lead clamps which once held the travertine blocks together. They wanted to melt down the lead to make new things.

The treasures of the Temple of Jerusalem are shown being carried on
litters (fercula) in the triumphal procession of AD 71. They include
the seven-branched candelabrum (menorah), silver trumpets, and the
table for the shewbread. Two plaques carried aloft would have had the
names of conquered cities inscribed on them. After the triumph, the
treasures were placed in the Temple of Peace in the Forum of
Vespasian.

Preceded by his lictors, Titus, in a quadriga, is led by Dea Roma, the
Goddess of Rome, into the City, as the Goddess of Victory crowns the
triumphator. The personifications of the senate and people of Rome are
at his side. The deeply carved reliefs, with the figures in the
foreground casting their shadows on those behind, create an illusion
of movement and depth that, together with the human and allegorical
figures, make these panels the most important sculpture of the Flavian
period.

June 6

Today we finally got to see the inside of the colosseum. Since we were with an archeologist/tour guide, we were able to go to the under ground level and the third level. It is hard to imagine how the colosseum used to look. There used to be seating everywhere, and other than a little section, it is all gone now. Also, since the ground level has been torn up, you can see all the way to where the underground level is. If they had not had a reconstruction of what part of the ground (and fighting) level would have been on, it would be even harder to imagine what it looked like. Here is the link to the trailer from Gladiator, and it gives you a little bit of a sense of what it was like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvTT29cavKo