Archives for April 2017

Sunday morning was moving day all around. Someone was moving out from an apartment in the building. A vehicle about half the size of a UPS truck, with happy vegetables painted on the cab, was the moving van. Chairs, taped boxes, heaps of stuff were pilled everywhere in the vestibule, halls, and stairwells. It put packing my two suitcases right into perspective.

I got my cash deposit back from the landlord’s spouse and headed out to await Uber. I had some overflow but it all fit in a shopping bag, so I don’t have to buy luggage…yet.
Over the river and through the piazzas to the delightful 15 Keys Hotel on Urbana Street in Monti. I was put in a third-floor room that was filled with light. I could feel my happiness quotient rise as soon as I opened the door. It was cheering to see so many photons dancing around. I also had an instantaneous improvement in the clarity of my vision. The more light, the better my elderly retinas focus. I realized that being in dim apartments for the last four weeks has had an effect on my mood. Instead of Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder, let’s call it Second-floor Affectiveness Disorder.
The room was sleek and well designed. It was comfortable, functional, and reasonably spacious. The bathroom was large by European standards and sparkling clean. There was no funky smell from the drains, no dimness, no rickety extraneous furnishings, no weird light fixtures. The sound-muffling double panes on the windows and tall glass door leading to my balcony worked like a charm. Opened and I heard traffic, people talking, Vespa’s buzzing; your generic noisy city street. Closed, not a whisper. Brilliant! Genius! 5 stars.
After I moved in and unpacked, I headed over toward the Baths of Diocletian, stopping en route to eat lunch. I tried a likely looking restaurant I’d plugged into my GoogleMap of Rome, La Matriciana,Via del Viminale, 44. Boy, did I luck out. They found me a single chair and table near the front door. It turned out I was the last person they could squeeze in. I watched them regretfully turn away more than a dozen parties that did not have reservations. Within ten minutes the place was packed to the rafters, and rocking with the sounds of happy diners talking and laughing. There were two large main rooms, and a wide hall area. I noticed a row of other diners also eating alone, middle-aged men mostly. They all looked stoically homesick. Or maybe just lonely. Single ladies of Rome, take note.
I drew postcards while I waited for service and then for food. No one objected to me scribbling and shading away, for which I was grateful. It was homey but refined; dark wood, big windows, white linen, servers in white jackets. I had a delicious seared cod with artichokes and panna cotta with a strawberry glaze that looked like a crime scene but tasted terrific. I made reservations for the next day, that’s how much I liked it.
Walked to the basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. I downloaded the app guide as advised at the entrance (modern times!)  Noted mosaics of astrological signs that flanked a line that cleaved a section of the floor.

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It turned out to be a meridian line, 45 meters long and composed of bronze edged with yellow-white marble, installed by order of the Pope. I want to come back at noon and see where the sunlight that enters through a hole in the roof strikes the line.
Left the church for another wander through the Baths of Diocletian. (Adding an indecorous note to say what a PIA it was to find a bathroom. I had to ask a guard everytime. My only clue was an almost invisible, pale gray glyph on a door that looked like part of the wall, in a dark back corner alcove).

While I examined Etruscan funerary goods and admired the late afternoon light on the cloister below, I listened to I Shall Wear Midnight, the fourth novel in the Tiffany Aching series. No one is better company in a foreign capital than Terry Pratchett.
Took a walk around my new home base before I returned to my room and decided to try this gelato shop they all rave about, Fatamorgana. OMG! They are not raving, they speak the solemn truth. I gambled on the flavor Thumbelina.  It was so freaking delicious, it instantly replaced my all time favorite gelato flavor, coconut. There really is a difference between the everyday gelato and these concoctions. It’s at the end of my street, people. I must be living right.
Bought a pint of milk and lost my room key card – dropped it on the street.  It was turned in a few minutes after I had to ask reception for a replacement. Good for my humility. The staff was totally cool about it. I think I’m going to like it here.

Walked through a market on my way to Santa Maria Della Vittoria and noticed a heap of kitty coin purses. I’ve used one for years until it’s nearly as soft as tissue. The vendor asked 5 euros for one. To my own surprise, I successfully bartered the cost down to 3, mostly by shaking my head and starting to walk on. Yippee.
Further along my route, I passed a courtyard, which reminded me of all those southern roadside stands selling concrete garden tchotchkes. Alas, no way will I be toting any of this home in my luggage.I’ve been looking forward to visiting Santa Maria Della Vittoria, shrine to Bernini’s genius, since I knew I was coming back to Rome. Bernini threw everything he had at the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa; sculpture, stucco, gilding, stained glass, paint, and colored marble. He used every skill he’d acquired as a sculptor, architect, playwright, and dramatist. He put his knowledge of stagecraft in the service of spirituality, and his own professional redemption. This pulled him out of the scandal he was mired in, and put him back on top. **
In the center, a dimpled angel of great personal charm, aims his spear at the breast of the swooning mystic. The cloistered nun Teresa of Avila is in the throes of a mystical vision. Gold rays point to the pair who appear to float, and boxes on the walls on either side hold watchful, seated figures. One of them is the patron who paid for this, Federico Cornaro, Cardinal of Venice. I’m sure he appreciated the view.
Let’s pause to acknowledge Bernini was inspired by Teresa’s own account, though this is no middle-aged, visionary nun. He sculpted a woman of perfect beauty with heavy-lidded eyes and parted lips in a face even more glorious than the angel’s. That said, she wrote,“Very close to me… an angel appeared in human form… he was not tall… but very beautiful and his face was so aflame that he appeared like one of those superior angels who look as though they are completely on fire… In his hands I saw a large golden spear and at its iron tip there seemed to be a point of fire. I felt as if he plunged this into my heart several times so that it penetrated all the way to my entrails. When he drew it out he seemed to draw them out with it and left me totally inflamed with a great love for God. The pain was so severe that it made me moan several times. The sweetness of this intense pain is so extreme that there is no wanting it to end and the soul is satisfied with nothing less than God. The pain is not physical but spiritual even though the body has a share in it – in fact a large share in it.”
Bernini knocked it out of the park – the swooning saint in an orgasmic full body seizure of rapture, the dimpled angel delicately pulling aside her fluttering robe to better aim of his shaft, the avid male spectators, watching the writhing, moaning nun from both sides. All the while, light waxes and wanes through a hidden aperture in the wall of the church, spotlighting Teresa’s supreme moment. Bam!I hung around for over an hour. It was a cool blustery overcast morning, and the light was changeable.

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Art historians and critics insist it could not possibly, conceivably be exactly what it looks like, a woman experiencing the cumulation of coitus. Oh no. Absolutely not. It’s a metaphor, a representation of purely spiritual bliss. Nothing earthy, nothing lubricious about it. No way in that era would anyone’s mind stray to carnal experience. Even though this woman’s face and body precisely, exactly mirrors wanton sexual bliss, they refuse to consider Bernini’s mind could have been on anything other than the purely ethereal love of God.
Fine, sure, whatever. I call bullshit. I say metaphor, schmetaphor. This is an accurate depiction of female erotic rapture.
You disagree? Tant pis. I’m in accord with French aristocrat and wit Chevalier de Brosses, who commented, “Well, if that’s divine love, I know all about it.”  Hey, it’s a point in Bernini’s favor that he’d inspired orgasms in women often enough to be able to depict one accurately.
As long as I am on blasphemous topics, imagine what Bernini might have wrought, given the scriptural description of Mary’s experience of impregnation.
“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Mary replies, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” Afterward, Mary says, “For he that is mighty hath done to me great things…”
Just pause for a moment, and imagine what Bernini would envision.
I wish I could tell you my experience with this pinnacle of the sculptural art, be it mystic vision or sensual rapture, was sublime and raised my thoughts to salvation.
Not really. I was a still point in a swirling rush of multiple tour groups, mostly teenagers on field trips. They tittered and sniggered as only young people, who have recently discovered the existence of sex and think they’ve invented it, will do. They paraded past the chapel, prodded by chaperones, or drifted in clumps, gossiping, tossing their hair (girls) kicking each other covertly (boys). Sadly, most of them kept their backs to the Bernini. I don’t know if they were indifferent or embarrassed.
Clusters of elderly foreign tourists led by guides were more earnest, attending to their guides, dutifully gazed at the tableau, pretending the mildly detached interest of non-combatants.
After an hour I’d had the opportunity to investigate the rest of the interior, the kind of ornate, over-the-top decor that put the OMG into RocOMGco. Like, the ceiling, other chapels of beautifully rendered statuary.By noon it was time to move on, and on my way to La Matriciana, I passed this Moses and one of half a dozen casually spitting lions on the corner.I haven’t walked far before I’m shivering. Short sleeve weather turned into raining and chilly. This was the weather I’d expected when I signed on for March. I am grateful it’s been so consistently mild and pleasant. Fortunately, the restaurant wasn’t far, and I again, I dined well.

I had a wonderful time trying to sketch Bernini’s expression of rapture and eating saltimbocca.
Given the weather, I had an abbreviated day. I returned to the St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs and took more time to listen to the audio history of Michelangelo’s conversion of a piece of the Diocletian Bath’s real estate into a Christian Basilica.
**Bernini tried to murder his brother Luigi and broke his ribs with a crowbar for poaching his (married) mistress, Costanza Piccolomini. Worse, he sent a flunky to slash her face with a knife. She ends up festering in prison, charged with adultery for four months. He gets a slap on the wrist (a fine that is later dismissed), a bride, and this commission.**

 

 

I rolled out of the white taxi at 10:50am for the 11am slot I’d reserved on the website. I expected lots of lingering in line given my first experience with the 9am slot, but not so. I hopped from ticket pickup to backpack drop off and was galloping up the stairs lickety-split. I did a u-turn and headed for the first floor, aimed for Bernini. En route I flirted with my favorite brilliant, subversive bad boy, Caravaggio. A classic case of tortured, talented drunk. That’s his self-portrait on Goliath’s face, hanging from David’s fist by his hair. I wish there’d been rehab back in his day.

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I asked a passing tourist to take my photo with Leda and her feathered lover.

Next I admired Bernini’s Persephone being carried off by Hades. It’s the first time I really saw the demented, gleeful expression of this brute god. He clearly relishes his capture of such a prize.  Her horror and despair don’t signify. What I’ve never forgotten was the way Bernini carved the harsh, hard grip of the god by the dents under his fingers in her soft thigh. She struggles, but she’s doomed. I hope the slavering, three-headed dog Cerberus gives her some comfort in the dark Underworld.
I miss you, Maddy!
I noticed the mosaic floor wasn’t frolicking sea creatures, it’s gladiators, which throws me straight to Lucius Verenus and the redoubtable Pullo. 13! !3!
I thought I was casing the joint, deciding what to sketch /look at a long time closely, but the moment I looked up at Daphne and Apollo (the wretch – I really have it in for him for some reason. Pretty, but what a thug,) that was it. I was all in. I stood in a corner, withstanding the surges of tourists, and scrawled away until I was knocked out of the contemplative head space sketching throws me into by the announcing that time was up, time to get out.
I packed up my pencils and realized I’d lost one of my pink cashmere mittens. Dang. I went to look for it, though the guards were very skeptical, they permitted a quick look around. No luck. But my luck changed when I made it to the ground floor, asked if they had a lost & found and the guard produced, like magic, my pink glove. Lucky!

I’d taken note of the nearby taxi rank that morning, so I walked through the park to it, and hopped.  It took me a second to realize the back seat was filled with glitter. The driver looked back and told me his last fare was a bridal party.  I was in a corner that escaped the glitter zone, a good thing given my black denim jeans. I had another good meal at Valentino’s It really feels like home. Glad I’m on this side of town now. Walked back to the hotel, stopping for an apple and some dried fruit and saw this gem in the racks.

Gluten Free!

I walked into an open door marked Free Entry only because Google wanted me to fly over a stone wall and walk down an invisible road. Military museum, I deduced from the submarine, humongous anchor, and half a dozen young men in camo. I turned right to the first room, just to be polite, and I realized I’d just stumbled across the motherload. Multiple cases with dozens of ornate presentation boxes, some with the documents, some with flags, all with identifying placards.  Thanks to a friendly young military man I learned they were commemorative boxes for ships lost in combat. A poster said there’s a downloadable app with guides to the collection in English, but it wouldn’t work for me or the helpful young man. No worries, I’ll tackle it with Google Chrome later.
But let’s talk about the boxes! From the extremely ornate to the sleek, different in size and material. There were six glass cases with three levels of shelves and large base cabinets. Helpful signs with images of all the boxes on display in the cabinet. This was what I searched for in the Vatican, hoping, wrongly, they’d have a deep collection of reliquaries.
This was an unexpected gift, wrapped up and delivered to me. Took some quick photos.

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I’ll return to photograph and sketch some of them more carefully. By the way, this museum is the cleanest environment I’ve seen in the city; dusted, mopped, fresh smelling and not one single piece of trash in sight, no so much as a gum wrapper, nothing. Just to say.
Feeling jubilant, and rearranging my travel schedule in my head, I sauntered into the Capitoline museum. I didn’t remember much from my visit back in 2004 – just an impression of musty rooms, the twins suckling the she-wolf, the copy of Marcus Aurelius on his horse, and the colossal bronze fragments of Constantino. Boy, does my memory suck, or there’s been a vast improvement. I’ll start with the iPad guide. It gets full marks for ease of use, and a good balance of entertainment and education. The well-spaced exhibits are attractively presented in a way that makes visual sense. I enjoyed this golden Heracles, and this surprisingly modern-looking fresco of the madonna.

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I visited the temporary exhibit on Da Vinci’s research of flight. There were screens with the contents translated for the English language visitor. I confess, I’m more enamored with the artist that the scientist, so I was charmed by this red chalk face in the midst of his Codex writings on flight. I think it might be a self-portrait. I quickly realized the Capitoline would repay multiple visits. More fun. I ate a reasonably edible museum restaurant meal on the terrace, worth is just for the view. I wolfed down mozzarella and prosciutto and figured out I will have more than enough to examine here or at the Barberini until I get on the plane. I briefly regretted I did not get here sooner, but if I had almost everything else would have been an anticlimax, so two weeks is perfect.

I didn’t leave until late, physically worn out from the long day, but happy happy happy.
Charmed life.

 

Stopped in Bar La Licata Via dei Serpenti, 165, en route to a day dedicated to covering every room in the Capitoline. Nice cappuccino and I scooped up a panino in case I decided to picnic in a courtyard. I arrived in a great mood only to find a line. Yeesh. A tour group of students were sitting in a row on the steps and drawing in sketchbooks. It lightened my heart. It makes me happy to know that no matter how blinded by hormones and ravaged by the need to be cool, this day they will look carefully look and what they see will get in under the radar. Art is like that. Hand-eye, that goes deeper than language.I waited in line, grateful I had an audio Terry Pratchett novel for company. After I got my ticket and ipad guide I moved to the next line to go through the single security point. There were two massive student groups ahead of me and a gaggle of elderly tourists, who seemed confused about how to place a shoulder bag on a conveyer belt. I gnashed my teeth just a little bit. Luck of the draw. It was starting to get hot, in the seventies, and I could feel my nose pinking up. Other northern tourists were starting to fry, their pale upper arms turning the color of boiled crustaceans. I may be leaving Rome with farmer’s tan.
Got through into the first courtyard about 45 minutes after I arrived. Never was I so grateful for all the strategizing I do to minimize the time I stand in line. I started with the painting galleries, and here are only a few of its wonders. The only red-haired John the Baptist I’ve ever seen.
This Rape of Europa is not the first version of the myth I’ve seen, but definitely boasts the most seductive bull. Check out what he’s doing with his tongue.

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But what really got under my skin were the rows of faces underneath the obligatory intimidating and braggadocio scenes on the walls of the Hall of Horatii and Curiatii. 

That band underneath the main paintings is a series of faces like these. They are called grotesques and possibly copied from older Roman villas.

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Drew a postcard featuring two of these, and I am still wondering about the reason for depicting desperate, baffled looking women and depraved male demons. If there’s an art historian out there who has a clue, please, fill me in.
A few hours later I moved to the underground corridor, reading with interest with the grave markers I’d been introduced to by the incomparable Mary Beard series. This one for a five-year-old girl choked me up.I made my way to the remains of the underground temple, and the marvelous view of the forum. Almost no one is there, I saw six other intrepid people in an hour, and it was marvelously cool. Word to wise, if you are coming here in the heat of summer, this is an excellent refuge.

I walked slowly through two floors of sculpture and was worn to a nub by the time I left. I haven’t felt this physically whipped since the first week. I may have overdone it today. I’ll be back to do half as much, in twice the time.
Back at the hotel I collapsed on the balcony and watched a sliver of a moon rise over the rooftops. 

This is why I make the effort to keep up the blog. When I re-read the entries, they rouse my memories and the more detail I include, the more vividly it all comes back.

Slept until past 8 after staying up past midnight….again. I have fallen into the habit of ‘one more chapter.’ No idea how I kept my eyes open after my long day, but somehow I did. My hips ached and even my feet hurt from yesterday, my neck had a crick in it. I could use a low key, do nothing day. But how do you turn your back on the banquet that is Rome?

Here’s how I did it – I lingered in bed with a mug of tea and sized photos for the blog I was a week behind on, did some internet housekeeping, and made a short video of the view from my balcony. From here Rome looks like a 2000-year-old game of Tetris.

Time flew by.  It was after 11 before I took a shower, got dressed, and toted my laundry down to the local laundromat. Five euros less than the guys in Prati.
My daughter sent me a WhatsApp text letting me know I’d inadvertently pocket-dialed her, and that she heard me saying “Life is great.”  I am so tickled that that’s the kind of thing I’m caught saying. On that tangent; it would please me greatly if my progeny followed my example when they are in their sixties, stay curious about whatever interests them in the wide world and go exploring. Just putting it out there!
I got another WhatsApp from my spouse, about the 1-85 bridge collapse from a fire. Miraculously, no injuries. I briefly wondered just how gridlocked Atlanta is. Then I thought how blessedly, completely unconnected from the news I’ve been. For this tender mercy, I thank the compassionate God of my understanding.
I walked to lunch at Trattoria Valentino and looked very carefully but there was no sign on the street to indicate the name of the establishment, yet they never lack for clientele. If I had any Italian, I’d ask about that. Instead, I just bask in their welcome. This time I managed to communicate that I’d like something with red sauce and he indicated it was not on the chalk menu but he would make it for me. By golly, he did. Pancetta and tomatoes are all I could identify, but it was delicious. His pasta hits the sweet spot of al dente for me, between limp and stiff as a bundle of twigs. Yeah, that’s happened a couple of times. I read a novel on my Kindle app, and drew a few postcards.
My route back to the hotel detoured by Fatamorgana. Sososo good. I peered in windows and saw this Banksy rip-off on a mug. Mugged. Heh.

I ambled back to the hotel, finished my drawing of MB’s Adam leaving Eden, the serpent offering the apple.Meandered back to pick up my laundry. Bought a very nice taupe gray belt from the quiet, patient man who’d made it. Check out this wall of buckles.Finished the excellent  A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran and am hoping to pull the plug and go to sleep by at 10pm

Tomorrow, the Barbarini and a tour of the private apartments.

A particularly lovely day. Could it be because I got to sleep before midnight for the first time in a week? Nah.
Off at 9 with a hand-drawn map to a coffee bar (the word Cafeteria affixed to a bar I’ve decided is a good indicator). They made me an excellent cappuccino, gave no hipster ‘tude, and I walked away with gorgeous fresh pastry.
Looked for the Post Office but it was not where Google said it would be. Ah well. Just before I turned into the gates of the Barberini museum complex, I saw what looked like a woodland on the rooftop of the building across the street, including a row of cedar trees. Bought my ticket and then inquired about the once a month, Saturday morning tour of the Principessa’s apartments.
She seemed concerned that it was in Italian, I shrugged, concerned only with viewing the art and said, “I’m an artist. I can just use my eyes.”  She reprinted my ticket for the sum for a tour and general admission and told me this ticket was good for ten days admission. A lagniappe of generosity for a good-hearted Italian lady. Picked up the audio guide in return for $ and my drivers license. A driver’s license has worked for ransom in every situation where I’ve been asked to leave my passport, FYI.
Bounded back outside and up the marble stairs to la Fornarina’s room. I was in front of the painting by 9am.
Then time stopped. I made one start on a sketch that I quickly abandoned. The next went better. I kept trying to get the curve of her cheek and the length of her nose and the shape of her lips exactly right. I worked as much with the eraser as the pencil,
but lord, I was happy. She’s my Love, Actually, in person. In my imagination, she redeemed Raphael, that womanizing, ambitious, good-looking, wildly successful climber from Urbino, with his polished manners and an eye to his own advancement. A man jealous of his position at court and competitive and manipulative enough to try to get Michelangelo fired. This is not the guy you fall for, hoping for happy ever after.

She isn’t a classic, cool beauty, or a sweet, vapid virgin, or a petulant, spoiled heiress. Raphael doesn’t just paint her likeness, he paints what she is to him, and such is his skill that he makes us, the viewers, see it too.  She is mischief and charm and lush, tender flesh and dark, limpid eyes. She is his heart walking around outside his body.
I decided I should check the time so I’d know how much longer before I should put my pencil away for the 11 tour, and it was 10:57. Two hours gone, just like that.
I galloped back down to the entry. It was just me, and an older Italian couple. There was much unlocking of doors and walking down corridors. The family rooms weren’t large, nor the ceilings high, but every inch was painted in a loose way, reminiscent of painted frescos from excavated villas.This room had a repeating motif of painted mirrors, which seemed odd. Each room that led into the next had it’s own decorative scheme. The blue room was a favoriteWhat I’ll remember best was the room paneled in paintings of American Indians in canoes on the river and camping alongside the banks,  naked except for feather adornments of a plume-like nature. These marvelous images were based on the drawings of daily life in North Carolina more than four hundred years ago by colonist and artist John White, “In 1585 White had been commissioned to “draw to life” the inhabitants of the New World and their surroundings…They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England’s first settlers.” As faded and damaged as these murals are, they are a unique record, and the only one of its kind in Rome.

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Three more glimpses for you: a sofa mirror combo that’s weirdly fabulous, a room lined with paintings of Colonna’s military exploits. In case you forgot the pedigree and bloodlines of your host, and this wee carriage; Hitch up the goat honey, junior’s going for a ride.

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I’d had no breakfast, and now it was 1:50 and I was starving. I had listened to exactly one item on the audio guide. Next visit I am going to save la Fornarina for last. I started walking towards La Matriciana, but I had the presence of mind to check the hours and it was closed for lunch on Saturday’s. Dang.
Went to Valentino’s and indulged a hankering for vegetables with a Caprese salad, grilled finocchio with Parmesan, and bresaola. More than I could finish, so they kindly wrapped up the bresaola to go for me. Stopped to buy apples, dried fruit, nuts and a box of After Eight mints. The staff of hotel life, baby.
Listening to The Lost Continent – no one is better company than Terry Pratchett.
Weather forecasts thunderstorms on Sunday, when I wanted to go to the big flea market. I may stay with Barberini. But, whups, the first Sunday was free entrance to museums day. That plus rain =  massive crowds.

Sunday, April 2. Rained Out
I nipped out in the rain for a cappuccino and cornetto and spent the rest of the day lounging around, catching up on this blog, and reading. Time well spent.

Tomorrow, RomeWalks audio tour.

It was a good day for a walk while listening to Anya Shetterly’s excellent RomeWalks on my iPod. I took a taxi to Campo di  Fiori, walked in a few circles until I was oriented with GoogleMaps, then followed Anya as confidently as a child holding her mother’s hand. It’s a mix of history enlivened with anecdotes and illustrated by visible architectural details of the surrounding palazzos, piazzas, churches, shops and streets.
These are some highlights of the three hours I spent following this walk off the touristic route.
On a street that was a hive of restoration activity and construction workers, I passed an open door and glimpsed paint cans, rollers, drop clothes. Home Depot in a garage. Then I spotted the rack of bespoke artists’ brushes. I now own three. 

Passing the Spanish National Church of Santiago and Montserrat I opened the door to the sound of the organ. Not interrupting a mass, it was someone practicing. The Borgia popes were buried here after their successor kicked their unwelcome bones to the curb. Lesson: a life of sin, debauchery, licentiousness, and corruption gets you this lovely eternal resting place. Well played, Borgias, well played.

As I was exiting, I saw this curious painting. I know most of the usual iconography, but this man using his robe for a sail? New to me.

The walk led me to a small church designed by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino for the Guild of Goldsmiths. The design was Raphael’s delicate riff on the Vatican’s St Peters basilica, on a much smaller scale of course. I was charmed by the cupola. This was the commission that added architect to Raphael’s resumé. How wealthy was Rome that a guild of artisans could afford to hire Raphael to build them a church? As a member of the Georgia Goldsmith’s Guild, I approve of my brother artisans choice.

This was one of those times graffiti made me sad and a little angry. I get that traffic tunnels and industrial walls are fair game, but do they have to piss all over Raphael? 

A little further along, a pair of columns topped with bare-breasted falcons was the kind of curious detail Ms Shetterly points out that I would otherwise not have seen.    

Next door, a church festooned with skulls and bones, which makes me think of Terry Pratchett’s character, DEATH.The tour pointed out bars still remaining from the renaissance era, when that building was a notorious prison.And this marvelous iron gate that seemed impossibly graceful and delicate. Many more fascinating streets later, I paused for lunch at Roscioli’s. I wanted another serving of that delicious bean, scallop and bacon soup I’d had my first week in Rome, and still remembered with pleasure.  Just to say, 26 euros for a bowl of soup, a small bottle of water, and an espresso seemed a little stiff.
As a solo diner, I was seated at the bar and by chance next to a young man from Venezuela. Over the course of our meals he told me he’d moved to Miami with family, become a citizen last year, and worked in an upscale Nantucket restaurant. He’s been on a food pilgrimage in Italy,  eating and working his way around the country. He did a few months in Puglia with a Michelin Star chef and offered to work for a baker for free to learn how to make their sourdough. A week after he started, they gave him a job. He was leaving for home the next day and his next job, in Nantucket at Ventuno. While we talked, I ate my bowl of soup and could barely waddle away. He polished off an amuse-bouche of warm goat cheese and pickled eggplant, three stuffed fried zucchini flowers, a heaping bowl of Amatriciana pasta, a small hill of bread, and a bottle of wine. All of it. No clue where he put it.  He shared that he was a marathon runner, which I guess balances out being a professional eater. Lovely guy. I wished him well.
When I left, checking my Googlemaps for my next route, the cold, brutal truth dawned. My internet was kaput. Google translate was DOA, Safari was blank, Uber inaccessible. I could use my downloaded map, but no directions for walking.I knew this day would come back when I signed on for a month of access, but dang.
By guess and by golly I made my way to via Cestari, the street of shops that provides clothes and accessories to the professional religious, priests to popes. I looked in about five shop windows and realized there was nothing I wanted or needed. Priest stuff was shockingly expensive, except for the shirts that are rigged for the collars. I passed a post office box and mailed a big batch of my little sketches on postcards. Time to chuck in the tea towel. No calling Uber, so I found my way to the foot of the Capitoline where I knew there was a legit Taxi stand. collapsed into a cab and headed back to my hotel for help adding another week’s worth of internet access.  Here’s a tip – if your bladder is full with soup and a bottle of sparkling water,  a taxi ride over cobblestone streets is like to kill you. Pee first.
The infinitely kind and patient ladies at the desk in 15 Keys translated the Vodaphone text messages. I need to give them 15 Euros to ‘top up the card’. It must be done either at a tobacconist or a Vodaphone store. I opted for the store at the Termini train station – probably a good idea since I’ll be meeting my Context Tour there on Thursday. It was not pleasant. Heaving with people, too many people with hard eyes, and tourists pulled wheeled bags. It looked weirdly like an American mall with shops lining the arcade. Vodaphone clerks cackled at the note I asked the hotel girls to write up for me. They took my 15 euros and to my question of when would it be back online, said ‘five minutes, madam, five minutes.’  I fled back to the hotel. Figured I’d lie down and when I woke up, the world would be spinning gently on its connected internet axis again. Foolish me.

Italy bitch-slapped me today. I never saw it coming. If you want to skip the rant that follows, skip down to pulled up my socks and walked on.
Now, I was not shocked that Vodaphone was playing with a loaded dice – like, you owe 15 euros but payments can only be made increments of 10 euros and 20euros aaaand down the rabbit hole I went. It was some solace that one of the hotel’s dear obliging desk clerks has also been screwed over by Vodaphone and despises them too. Lost time, lost patience, lost trust. Whatever. You have an internet provider, at some point you get bitten in the ass. I’ve had more expensive lunches. It’s the principle.
Now, the men at the TIM store in Trastevere, who said only one plan was available for 49 euros, gave me a receipt but no contract, and the chip is used up a week later? That was outright thievery. Thus my move to Vodaphone store, flanked by two Italian friends who walked me through the purchase of this chip, which was great and it worked out well, until it didn’t. Sadly, it set me up for this last round bit of chicanery. But I don’t blame Italy for this, this is a pain felt worldwide.
No, what is breaking my heart a little are the two tobacconist stores, your source in Italy for public transportation ticket, stamps, Vodaphone payments (ha), mints and cigarettes. Directed there to purchase stamps, and when asked for postcard stamps, using English, GoogleTranslate and holding up a postcard to illustrate clearly what I required, sold me stamps that turn out to be invalid in the Italian postal system.
They are not only overpriced, not a shocker, they belong to a different, private system.
It would just be money I wish I hadn’t spent if I hadn’t, in good faith, put postcards into three different public post office boxes, the kind on the wall on the street with two slots, one for Italy, one for everywhere else.
I would never have known if I hadn’t spotted an open Post Office door today and gone in to mail a postcard and buy more stamps. The post office clerk tossed my card back to me and said, “no good.” Another customer who spoke excellent English interpreted for me and that’s how I found out I might as well have dumped them in the Tiber. He was as shocked as I was.
I mailed some cards from the Vatican – which has its own postal system –  and those have arrived.
I have some of the other ‘stamps’ left and the PO clerk said to go back to the tobacconist and ask where to mail them. Too little, too late. So I bought ten legit stamps, pulled up my socks and walked on.
I bought some shoes. Few purchases are more guaranteed to lift the spirits.  I loved these shoes when I first saw them. It was a good sign that four weeks later I still thought they were delectable. Well-made, sturdy and cushioned for walking, supple and a gorgeous color. They were men’s shoes, which like to kill the Italian man who waited on me. He hastened to tell me they were for men. When I said it didn’t matter to me, I could see he was dying to ask if I was aware I was female.
I bought a cheap pink scarf in a street market. Because cheap and pink; win-win! There was a blue scarf with an interesting, subtle geometric pattern I really liked but not for – gasp – 149 euros. It was made by Ferrari. For that kind of dough I want at least a hubcap. Maybe the knob on the top of the shifter.
I went back to the Barberini and loved it. Will probably go a few times more. Drew Judith Slaying Holofernes – just what I was in the mood for after the post office and Vodaphone chip debacles. I drew in my sketchbook, so take that you lying, cheating tobacconists. At one point I was startled by several camera flashes. Turned out an art class on a field trip had been watching me sketch and asked if they could take some more photos of me for ‘homework’. Um, sure. I was finished, but I faked it for them.  I moved on to another room with a sleeping cherub. Drawing that peacefully slumbering putto that helped to calm me down.By then it was 2:30 and I walked La Matriciana for a late lunch of scallops, which were the best I’d had in a long time, and an artichoke, roman-style.

Back at the hotel,  I read a pleasant obliging email from the Context tour company, asking if they could take photos while I’m on my Tivoli trip and use them on their social media. If so, please sign and return the attached release. I read it, and no. Hell no. Here are the points that really chapped me and that I called out in my reply which follows,
Sorry, but definitely no. Mainly because of the provisions – the irrevocable and unrestricted right –  and – and any other purpose – but especially – and to alter and composite the same without restriction and without my inspection or approval.
I might have considered limited use with my approval, but not this. I asked them to just tell me to stay clear of the shots and I will happily comply.
Tomorrow is another day. And hey, if bad things come in threes, I’m done. I have four churches I want to visit that are on the other side of town. My plan is to rise and shine early, spend some time in holy places with heartrendingly glorious art, and then buy some of that wicked good chocolate from Quetzalcoatl.

I decided to connect a few liturgical art dots, walking from church to church. My first stop was St Agostino. I came for the famous Caravaggios, I stayed for Monica. St Augustine’s mamma didn’t kneel as she fervently prayed for her son’s  conversion, she stretched flat out on the floor of the nave She was all in. Though his bones are interred elsewhere, she is buried here. Little do my children know how often I thought of Monica, stretched out on the cold stones of the church floor leaking tears. She seemed like a kindred spirit, one who would understand what it was like to be under fire deep in the trenches of motherhood, praying for courage, strength, and patience.

There was a sculpture of Madonna who has been elected to handle infertility issues. Witness those pinned offerings of it’s a boy/it’s a girl ribbons, testaments to answered prayers. Blatant tokens of maternal victory, or expressions of gratitude?  My brain thinks they are cheesy but my heart approves.
I’ve learned on this visit to Rome that it’s not just the church, it’s the chapel that stops me in my tracks and that I’ll remember. I’d visited S Maria della Pace before and never noticed the masterful frescoes of Adam and Eve, before and after Eden, in the arch above.

Nor these figures, reclining on sarcophagi supported by sphinxes. I give you  Mr and Mrs Eternal Rest.

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I found the Sant’Agnese in Agone church but the marble sculpture I was seeking by Bernini was nowhere to be found. I wonder if they are not connected, the sculpture and the church. Piazza Navonna is much like I remember, bustling with hustlers and the ghost of weddings past, with passersby calling out ‘Auguri!’ to the perambulating newlyweds.
I’d chosen another RomeWalks, and found myself in the Sant’Antonio dei Portoghesi. They went a little crazy with the marble, which makes perfect visual sense to me after my journey to Lisbon two years ago. Being in the pews you’re surrounded above and below and from every point of the compass with visual splendor. Sometimes every sense is engaged; the cool even temperature, traces of incense steeped in the wood and marble, recording of liturgical music, or, like the other day, organ practice. Is not only visually rich, there’s an emotional impact. The feeling I have in those moments is how Holly Golightly describes being in Tiffanys. “It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there…”
I’ll say again that I love Anya Shetterly’s wise, informed, and cultured commentary and her egoless decision to let a professional do the interstitial parts of the audio. Yes, it’s old and you’ll have to hunt it down on the internet, but it will be worth it.

This unprepossessing facade is the church that housed the order of clergy who took it upon themselves to pray for the souls of the condemned on their way to the scaffold. When an execution was scheduled, they’d put a sign up outside this very door that promised a plenary indulgence for everyone who prayed for the soon to be departed soul.
Here’s another tip for the visitor; never eat in a place where you think, huh – cute. Good food does not do cute in Rome. They do barely visible virtually anonymous, and blend in. Let that be a lesson to me. Lured in by that adorable artichoke tree outside, I had a memorably bad meal at this place. Greasy, mushy, flavorless. Do your homework, and don’t get distracted by cute. I haven’t had a bad meal at places recommended by bloggers Katie Parla and Elisabeth Minnchilli

Took the long way back to the hotel, just to see what I could see. The variety of uniforms never fails to impress.

Very tempted to enter this shop and empty out my wallet.

I’ll save any hardcore shopping for my last few days. I was beat by the time I limped into the hotel. Any day I go over five miles, I feel it. I took it easy, and started drawing more postcards to send. That’s the good that came out of my stamp mishap. I was inspired to draw all evening long. Nothing wrong with that. I did four versions of La Fornarina because I adore her, and then I branched out. Those will be correctly stamped and mailed. I wish I had a record of which ones were trashed, but I really have not a clue. Maybe someone in the Italian postal service will notice them, have a heart and stuff them in the right boxes.