Thursday in Rome

Having done the Vatican on Wednesday, I thought I'd make Thursday the day for antiquities: the Ara Pacis, the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Forum, Trajan's Market, and the Palatine. By the time I woke up and realized that it was raining and that it was already almost ten, I decided I would switch the outdoor sites for indoor ones. That, by the way, leaves the Palatine, the Forum, and the Colosseum as my grand finale tomorrow night. What a way to end it.

Fortunately, the Ara Pacis is indoors. Haven't heard of it? Ara Pacis means the Altar of Peace, and it is the altar erected by Caesar Augustus after his victories in the civil wars and over barbarians knocking at the gates of Rome. The inaugural sacrifice took place in 9 B.C., and that meant the beginning of the Pax Romana. More than Augustus' Pantheon or his Forum, more than roads or aqueducts, this little-known altar tells us exactly, precisely what Imperial Rome was all about: the gospel of peace through victory under the father of the fatherland, Caesar Augustus, Lord and Savior, the Son of God. And on the side, the Ara Pacis tells his gospel, The Acts of the Divine Augustus.

I got to Priene in Turkey, where the word euangelion (gospel) is first found used for the message of Caesar and Rome, but I have no idea where the inscription is; Aphrodisias, where the great shrine to the Julio-Claudian family, the Sebastion, is located, has a copy of Acts of the Divine Augustus on it, but because I had to hurry through Turkey to make the tour, I never got there; and at Pergamon the Altar to Zeus, upon which the Ara Pacis was likely based, is no longer there, but at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

Walking into the museum where the altar is now located, I had to catch my breath at the site of it. No, nothing visually stunning. But there it was, something I've been waiting to see for months now, the pinnacle of Rome's self-understanding. It was here that Caesar Augustus, as Pontifex Maximus (high priest) of Rome and Princeps (First Citizen), brought those two roles together to confirm Rome's place in the world- and his place in Rome.

It's shaped like an empty box with an altar in the center, with one side open to allow access. On either side are reliefs depicting Augustus, his friends, his family, his supporters and clients (patronage again). Aside the entrance way are two particularly interesting reliefs. The Ara Pacis, you see, collects the myths of Romulus and Remus and of the exiled Trojan Aeneas into a history of the Julian clan in the same way Virgil's does. So on the left side of the rear face is a relief of Romulus and Remus suckling from the She-Wolf; on the other is Aeneas. And note that Aeneas is the son of Venus, while Romulus and Remus are the sons of Mars, thus showing the godly lineage of Augustus and the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

The rear contains parallel reliefs of the goddess Roma, symbolizing (or ensuring) Augustan victory, and a pastoral scene, displaying the prosperity of the Pax Romana. There it is, the gospel of Caesar in stone. It was reassembled, by the way, by Mussolini.

From there I went to the rather uninspiring Castel Sant'Angelo, just up the Tiber from the Vatican. The two tiers of the structure are ancient and medieval; the first was the grand mausoleum of Hadrian, and the second structure built atop it was a fortress for the popes. I spent most of my time wishing I'd brought my coat, since the rain had brought in a chill for the day.

Then I headed to the Pantheon. I'd seen the Pantheon Wednesday night when I took a nighttime stroll from Campo d'Fiori, through Plaza Navona, by the Pantheon, past the Trevi Fountain, and ended at the Spanish Steps. But now I got to go in it.

The dome is an engineering marvel. Look it up for yourselves, because I'm just not competent enough to really explain it. But standing in there I had an appreciation for the genius of Rome. It is, after all, one of the few structures built by the Romans that isn't in ruins (even if the right side is currently covered in scaffolding).

One thing I didn't know about the Pantheon is that three very important people are buried there: Victor Emmanuel II (more on him in a second), his son Umberto I, and, wow, who knew?, Raphael. That was a pleasant surprise I hadn't seen coming.

The guidebook I had (Rick Steves, of course) pointed me to a number of local churches with impressive histories or architectures. I got to three out of four of the recommendations. The two that I was most impressed by were Santa Maria sopra Minerva and the Gesu Church.

Santa Maria sopra Minerva is Rome's only Gothic church (left/above). The interior is blissfully devoid of stucco overstatement and rococo absurdities. It has the sort of vaulted ceiling that is far more common in northern Europe than Italy, which is my favorite sort of ceiling (St. George's Cathedral in Israel had a vaulted ceiling).

The church also has a great history around it. 'Sopra Minerva' means that it is built atop a temple to the mother goddess Minerva, although no evidence of that is extant. This church's monastery is where Galileo was tried as a heretic by the Inquisition. On his way to his trial he knelt before the altar here. And the altar? It contains the body of St. Catherine of Sienna.

Note, by the way, 'the body.' Her head is in Sienna (more on that in the next post).

The church also has a Michelangelo sculpture in it of a strong, muscular Christ clinging to the cross. His privates are comfortably private thanks to that characteristically Counter-Reformation swoosh of bronze loincloth; Michelangelo originally sculpted him buck naked. You know, I don't have a problem with nudity in art, and we probably need to be less hung up about it since in classical art it represents innocence, not eroticism; but I draw the line at Christ (oh, and Mary, definitely Mary). Anyways, fantastic sculpture; the muscles are so the muscles of a stone cutter (or 'carpenter')

The other church I was particularly impressed with was the Gesu Church, or Jesuit Church. This church is the headquarters of the Jesuit Order, and as much as I loved it, it was downright scary.

In the left transept is the tomb of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the soldier-turned-saint and founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). An altar rises up to the ceiling above him, but the most interesting feature is the statue scene just to the right of the altar: Religion Overthrowing Heresy.
In this picture, Religion is symbolized by an angry freaking nun, the kind you've never experienced personally but always hear horror stories about. She's holding a whip and beating Heresy, a man scampering, or toppling over, on the ground. Around Heresy is the Snake, our good pal Martin Luther (or Lutheranism in general), pulling him in. Off to the side, a mean-looking cherub (the way only fat babies with wings can look mean) is tearing the pages out of a heretical book. Yeah, it was scary.

Happily, the right transept is more ecumenically friendly. Here lies the grave of St. Francis Xavier, a Catholic missionary who attempted to spread Christianity to the east. He got as far as Japan. Now that's better.

After these and other churches I walked past Trajan's Market, which really isn't anything special, and checked out the Victor Emmanuel monument. Vitorio Emmanuel II was the king of Piedmont (northwestern Italy) and Sardinia (the island) before uniting Italy under his Savoy dynasty. He is called 'the second' because he kept the numbering system of Piedmont-Sardinia, much to the chagrin of the united Italian provinces. The House of Savoy ruled Italy until their position was compromised by support for Mussolini; they were voted out of power by popular referendum in 1946, and live (and say stupid things) in Switzerland.
The monument itself is cool, though. It's a bit... big... but the central statue of Victor Emmanuel on horseback is the largest equestrian statue in the world. The Italian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is here, too, watched over by the goddess Roma.

From here I circled around to the Capitoline Museums. This collection is one of the four great ones of Rome (with the Vatican, the Borghese, and the National Museum), and it was nice to get a good amount of time there.

Here's a rundown of their best pieces:

Bits of the colossus of Constantine, from the Basilica of Constantine that once stood in the Forum:

Commodus, the bad guy from Gladiator, dressed as Hercules:


The Capitoline She-Wolf, with Romulus and Remus:

Marcus Aurelius, extending a hand of clemency to foes and mounted on horseback (this statue was thought to be Constantine because of the hand of blessing and thus saved from the Christian purge of pagan statues; it was placed in the center of the Capitoline Square by Michelangelo):


The Dying Gaul, from Pergamon:


The Capitoline Venus, the only cute Venus I've ever seen:


And that was my Thursday.