Wednesday, March 20, 2013 -- At Home in Rome

Almost exactly 24 hours after leaving home, we arrived at our apartment in Rome yesterday afternoon about 4:00.  We’re pleased with our digs in Trastevere, an old (as opposed to ancient) neighborhood of narrow, winding streets along the banks of the Tiber, just a few blocks from where we stayed on our last visit here.  It’s a residential area, lively, full of small shops, bars, and restaurants, and well located for getting around the city.  After buying SIM cards for our phones and some grocery shopping (in a supermarket we’d frequented before), we gave in to the weariness and headed “home” for our first wine, cheese, and grissini (breadsticks) happy hour, dinner, and sleep.

After catching up on missed sleep, by mid-morning we were ready to set out for today’s wander.  Before leaving “our” neighborhood, we stopped at the Church of San Crisogno, thought to be Rome’s first parish church.  Below the present-day church are the excavations of a Fourth Century church, with artifacts dating from two centuries earlier.  Frescoes, highly decorated sarcophagi (one holding an assortment of bones), grave markers, a baptistery and an altar were all there, just below and within earshot of the busy street above.  Remarkable to us, business as usual to Romans!

We crossed the Tiber, muddy and swollen to overflowing its banks, to the Centro Storico, the historic city center.  Stopping in churches along the way, we made our way through Piazza Farnese, home of two distinctive fountains and the French Embassy, to Campo dei Fiori.  This traditional produce market seems to have ceded more of its space to goods packaged for their appeal to tourists. Despite this, the market, at the foot of the statue of Giordano Bruno, a Dominican who was burned at the stake for heresy during the Inquisition, is a busy, interesting place in a square lined with outdoor cafes, restaurants, and bars. 

A short walk brought us to a wide-open vista of the Piazza Navona, built on the site of Emperor Diocletian’s race course, and taking its elliptical shape.  Three fountains, many artists’ stalls, and lots of tourists fill the center of the piazza, while the perimeter is filled with palazzi, embassies, churches, shops and restaurants.   We stopped in the church of St. Agatha, supposedly built on the site of her martyrdom, and home to a chapel housing her skull.  Rome, like much of Italy, is filled with churches displaying the remains, in varying states of preservation and completeness, of all manner of saints and the venerated.

Then, it was on to the Pantheon, the oldest continuously used building in Rome.  Constructed by the Emperor Hadrian in the second century, it was originally a Roman temple.  Since the beginning of the seventh century, it has been a Catholic church, and continues to function as such today.  The architecture is renowned, most notably for its dome, which served as the model for Brunelleschi’s in Florence’s duomo and Michelangelo’s at St. Peter’s Basilica.  While visiting the tombs of Raphael and the first kings of unified Italy within, thanks to the large oculus at the center of the dome, we were able to experience a bit of the rain that had begun to fall outside. 

The neighboring church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva built atop another ancient temple, with a Bernini elephant sculpture and obelisk in its little piazza,  houses the grave of Fra Angelico, (most of) the body of St. Catherine of Siena, a Michelangelo statue of Christ, and a chapel frescoed by Lippi. 

By the time we left Santa Maria, the rain was steady and our umbrellas were out; so were the umbrella vendors, almost as ubiquitous as the churches in this city.  Our next stop was the Church of St. Ignatius, on a quiet and pretty eponymous piazza.  The church is a baroque extravaganza, dedicated to the founder of the Jesuits, who have much to celebrate these days, with the installation of one of their own as Pope Francis just yesterday.  In fact, all of Rome seems to be celebrating the arrival of their new bishop; there are posters on billboards and buses painted with messages welcoming Francesco!

In all of our previous visits to Rome, we have never climbed the steep steps of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, possibly because they’ve always looked so intimidating compared to Michelangelo’s Cordonata, which so gently climbs the Capitoline Hill right alongside them.  Age must have made us fearless, because today we made the ascent, splashing our way through the rain.  In addition to a visit to the church, with mosaic floors and frescoes by Pinturicchio, we were rewarded by an easy access to the terrace of the monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, the massive white edifice sometimes referred to as The Wedding Cake or The Typewriter.  Whatever the name, it dominates the Capitoline Hill and the Piazza Venezia far below, and offers wonderful views of the city, from the nearby Colosseum to St. Peter’s dome.

At that point, we were wet enough and we felt we’d seen enough for one day, so we headed back home for pre-happy hour warming cups of espresso and tea.  Along the way, we stopped to pick up some fresh pasta in a nearby specialty shop, so were set for dinner at home, happy we wouldn’t have to hit the wet streets again.

Despite a soggy afternoon, we had a full and interesting day in this wonderful city.