Roma

Roma

I could say that two full days in Rome were not enough to soak up the city and see all the sites, but at the end of June, with tourists by the boatload and 90+ degrees from 8am to 8pm, two full days was enough. On the first day, Joanne and I took the subway to Saint Peter’s and then walked slowly back to the hotel by Termini (the main train station), which, all told, was a good two-and-a-half to three miles. In the shade, the heat was bearable. One of the nicest surprises was the abundance of public fountains and water spouts where we could wet our hands and splash water on our faces to cool off. The water is also potable, so carrying a Nalgene bottle was a smart move to offset the 4 to 5 Euro bottles of water. On the second day, we went in search of Piranesi’s refurbished, 9th-century church named Santa Maria del Priorato (restored in c.1750). The church sits on the property of the Priory of Malta, which is perched up high on the Aventine, one of Rome’s many hills. Unfortunately, the grounds are rarely open to the public and there was no exception made for our visit. We couldn’t even get close to the church, but we were able to peep through the keyhole that Piranesi placed in the front gate. The view through the keyhole reveals the dome of St. Peter’s perfectly framed by rows of slender green pine trees. A local tour guide stopped by with some tourists and pointed out that through the keyhole you can see three separate countries: Italy, Vatican City, and Malta, since the garden and grounds technically belong to the Maltese. The Aventine was perhaps the nicest part of Rome. Cool breezes blow across its heights and ample tree covering creates a lot of shaded to space. It was easily five degrees cooler up there than it was down below by the Circus Maximus and the Colosseum.

Piranesi has been a driving force in my research of eighteenth-century Italy. I am not entirely sure how to integrate him into my work on the Venetian theatre, but his presence is impossible to ignore when reading about the settecento (i.e. the 1700s). For more general information on Piranesi, you can read my interview in the Walker Art Center’s monthly magazine, a copy of which you can find a few entries back on this blog. In Rome, Piranesi popped up several times. The most interesting encounter was at the Pantheon where, directly adjacent to the old building, there was a print shop selling large canvases of prints made from Piranesi’s etchings. These are of course mechanical reproductions, but the mere presence of these images next to the building that inspired Piranesi and his contemporary Italian and French architects was extremely interesting. In my Picasa photo album of Rome (see slideshow below) there are pictures of the Piranesi print shop. The best one, as far as I am concerned, is the photo of the four Piranesi prints side-by-side forming a large square. In the reflection of the glass you can see an image of me taking the photo. At least two of those prints are technical drawings of the Pantheon, which was directly behind my back, no more than 5 or 6 yards away, when I was taking the picture. The Pantheon itself seems to be designed as an homage to Greek classical architecture. The name refers to the polytheistic system of deities, which was part of classical Greek and Roman culture—but the name’s Greek origin gives its inspiration away. Piranesi was heavily invested in touting the rich history of Etruscan and Roman art and architecture, and his etchings of the building would have emphasized the elements of the design that could have stemmed from non-Greek origins. The French Academy, members of which touted classical Greek architecture over that of the Romans, would have created images to combat Piranesi’s. There was a lively duel between Piranesi and the French Academy, and it was a duel fought in images. The rhetoric woven into Piranesi’s prints was extremely powerful. He wrote several treatises in which he coupled his images with written arguments, but the images spoke much louder. Ultimately, Piranesi won out. His images not only continue to thrive in our imaginations, but they still have a spot right next door to the Pantheon where tourists can take home their very own souvenir of the great structure. I doubt that the store in question has been around since the mid-eighteenth-century, but Piranesi images and the tourists’ lust for them certainly date back to the 1750s. In the left-hand column of this blog you can find a slideshow of my pictures from Rome. If you click on them I think you will be taken to my Picasa site where you can look at them in larger size and download them.