Now that George's project is finished and his classes are done we are visiting and revisiting lots of Rome's sights. Last Monday, we visited churches around the Forum area, went into the Colosseum and went on a merry-go-round in Piazza Navona!
We visited Santa Maria in Aracoeli,
Where St. Helen, Constantine's mother, is buried and where legend says Augustus' Ara Coeli is. Emperor Augustus heard a prophesy at the Temple of Juno Moneta that states "This is the altar of the first born of God". So he built an altar on this site referred to as the Ara Coeli, "altar of heaven".
Santo Bambino, a statue of baby Jesus that is carved out of olive wood from the Garden of Gethsemene.
Santi Cosma e Damiano,
and San Francesco Romana.
The church was built on the spot where Simon Magnus (Acts 8:9-24 and from the apocryphal Acts of Peter), in an attempt to show off his magical powers, flew into the air, but because of the prayers of Sts. Peter and Paul, crashed to the earth leaving the above imprint in the floor.
This confession was designed by Bernin. Little George loved walking up and down these stairs. I do not know how many time he went up and down them while Dad took tons of photos of the church.
While little George napped and Dad sat outside the Colosseum (he had already visited the Colosseum a few times before), I went into the Colosseum. It was awesome walking around, listening to my free Rick Steves audio guide tell stories of the Colosseum and to be in such a historical place.
From the Pantheon, we walked towards Piazza Navona in order to walk around the Christmas market and go on the merry-go-round! Little George loved it at first but about haft way through the ride he started to get a little distressed.
On Friday, we went all over the city seeing many more sites than we had originally planned. We began at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, went up the Sancta Scala and visited the Lateran for the last time this trip.
Santa Croce houses many relics of the Passion: 3 parts of the Cross, a portion of the title from the cross, the Apostle Thomas' finger, two thorns from the crown of thorns, and a nail.
This is the Chapel os St. Helen, which was built on soil that St. Helen brought back with her from Calvary.
Showing Giorgio the presepe at the Lateran
Then we walked over to Santa Maria Maggiore to visit the relics of Christ's manger during Advent and to visit Bernini's tomb.
On the way to Maria Maggiore, we stopped in a small church and it ended up having the original icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
George at Bernini's tombstone
We stopped at our favorite gelato/ cannoli shop on our way to visit Sant'Agata dei Goti and then headed up to Bernini's Sant'Andrea al Quirinale.
We had a wait a few minutes in front of Sant'Andrea al Quirinal for the church to open,.
Giorgio liked this presepe I think because it was at the perfect level!
After swinging by the Trevi Fountain one last time, George got it into his head that we should experience Rome at night by walking up Via del Corso at night and walk up to Piazza del Popolo.
Looking towards the Spanish Steps
Piazza del Popolo
We finished the night off by having dinner at a Fr. DeRosa recommended restaurant near Sant Apostoli. They had the most amazing antipasta buffet there!
We ended up walking almost 6 miles in one day!
With all of that walking we did on Friday, we decided to have a lazy day on Saturday!
Here are George's studio projects! If you wondered what George has been up to all semester, then the answer is designing, drafting and rendering these plates.
The first project, a two week project at the start of the semester, is an Italian garden located on the edge of the Celian Hill next to the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Circus Maximus. The garden itself contains many different types of garden elements composed in such a way to reference other Italian gardens and to take advantage of the garden's incredible location in the city.
The second project is of a Flemish Embassy and Cultural Center in Rome, next to San Andrea della Valle. The idea of the embassy is to showcase the Flemish artistic contributions to the Roman Renaissance and Baroque. The embassy follows a traditional Roman palazzo typology. On the second floor, "piano nobile", contains a suite of four rooms in which artwork of various Flemish artists are displayed. The courtyard contains sculpture by Flemish artists.
Top floor plan is of the top floor, the middle floor plan is of the second floor and the bottom floor plan is of the ground floor.
Front and back elevations.
East and west side elevations.
Section and detail of acanthus stucco work located in the Grand Salon's, which is on the second floor, corner ceiling cove.
The final and third studio project, all done in 12 days, is a proposal to fill out the existing architectural context around a papal tomb of Gregory XV in the Boncampagni Ludovisi Chapel in San'Ignazio.
At the start of the project, we met the current Princess Ludovisi at her home in Villa Aurora where she gave us a tour of the villa and spoke of the family history. (Caravaggio's only fresco is in this Villa.)
George solution to the project was to add a Baroque interior to compliment the Baroque papal tomb. Taking inspiration from the existing oval dome, he turned the chapel into an oval with two convex aedicules on the sides. There are four free standing columns in the chapel on which allegorical statues of the four cardinal virtues rest. In the lunettes of the lower dome, there are the lives of four saints that Gregory XV canonized (St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, St. Philip Neri, and St. Teresa of Avila). In the upper dome, there is a fresco of heaven with the saints in glory. In the top of the cupola, there is the ascent of the Holy Spirit. Thus the chapel is not only a funerary monument but a place for prayer. When one enters one sees the earthly realm in the marble, then one ascends slightly towards the virtues and those that exemplified those virtues. As one looks up, one sees heaven opening up and the Holy Spirit descending.
Done in an analitque, which is a way of composing and thinking about many scales of architecture at the same time. Both the details and the general floor plan are presented.
George's professor has nominated this project for accommodation and possible publication by the school!
When the students presented their final project to their professor, the dean of the school and the Prince and Princess Boncampagni Ludovisi, they also showed other work from this semester.
George finished and turned in his final studio project on Saturday night (he is presenting it today)!! So starting Sunday morning, we have been able to enjoy Rome together! It has been wonderful! Little George is glowing. You can tell he is in 7th heaven now that he has both Mom and Dad playing with him. George is loving being able to really see and enjoy Rome. I am loving being able to see Rome with my husband.
We have been holding off seeing certain things (some of the most important sights to us) since we wanted to see them together. So what are we doing for the next week or so? Seeing those sights!
Of course lots of the Vatican sights are on that list: St. Peter's cupola, the Vatican Museum and the Gardens together. So Sunday morning, we headed to the Vatican for Mass at St. Peter's Altar of the Chair.
After mass we went into Piazza San Pietro for the Angelus! It was Giorgio's first Angelus with the Pope!
In the afternoon, we climbed up to the top of St. Peter's cupola! It was pretty windy up there so we could not stay for long but wow were the views up there amazing! It is our favorite view of Rome!
On Tuesday, we headed over to the Vatican Museums for our tour of the Gardens and then an afternoon in the Museums. We did not know that you could take a tour of the Vatican Gardens, until out of curiosity I looked up the Vatican Gardens online and discovered this tour through the Vatican offices. It was the most amazing sight we have seen while in Italy! Our tour guide was a faithful Catholic, who had a rich knowledge of church history, architecture, art and theology, making for a spectacular tour. Little George was an angel. He just relaxed in his stroller looking around and getting excited about all the beautiful things he saw (particularly the fountains, of course!).
The Casina of Pius VI
The tour guide said this is one of the favorite places of Pope Benedict XVI to go to pray. He also loves animals and he likes to watch the turtles in this fountain.
... and so does Giorgio!
Part of the Casina
The Eagle Fountain.
Statue of St. Peter overlooking St. Peter's basilica
JPII loved cacti and started this collection of cacti in the gardens.
The building where the Governorate is. This is were most of the business takes place. There were lots of the Vatican police outside so our tour guide speculated that Pope Benedict might be inside or expected to arrive soon.
This is the bell that JPII had placed in the Gardens and rang to bring in the Jubilee Year in 2000 and in the background is the tour that was a favorite spot of JPII. After he was shot, he lived in it for a sort period of time.
The garden behind the tower above.
We met the Cardinal Archpriest of St. Peter's, Cardinal Comastri. He blessed Giorgio and then blessed the whole group!
Grotto of Lourdes. The altar is from Lourdes.
A rose garden dedicated to Mary.
After eating a quick lunch in the Cortile Belvedere, we explored the Vatican Museums.
Not too many people were in the museum and the Sistine Chapel, so it made it much easier to pause and appreciate any of the works of art you wanted to. In the past when George or I had visited the Vatican Museums, it was so crowded that you were pushed along by the crowds unable to view with leisure.
St George
Deposition by Caravaggio
Christianity conquers paganism
Dispute over the Holy Sacrament by Raphael
The School of Athens by Raphael (one of my favorites)
We spent almost an hour in the Sistine Chapel! The work is brilliant! There is so much depth in each piece. We spent the entire time just looking at the panels and talking about all of the meaning in each of them. Little George also appreciated the chapel as well. He kept on staring at the Last Judgement. When exiting the Sistine Chapel, we asked if we could go directly to St. Peter's. To get to the basilica, we walked down Bernini's stairs! George was in heaven and little George of course was too since he was walking down all of those stairs!
We spent a little time in St. Peter's. Boy, will we miss this place when we leave Rome!
I know its blurry... but I had to show you little George blessing himself with holy water from St. Peter's
This next week will be filled with seeing many more Roman sights as a family. This is what we have been looking forward to all semester!
