We did not really have much of a plan for today. We thought about going to Palatine Hill and joining the crowds looking at the ruins, but somehow I felt that after Ostia Antica it would be a disappointment. On a whim, we decided explore the Piazza del Populo, right by our local metro stop. We had walked by it for a couple days, and it only seemed right to check it out. It was a good decision.
The Piazza dei Populo was the northern entrance to the city of Rome, and as most of the important visitors to the city came from the north, it was their first glimpse of the city. For this reason, Rome’s papal rulers were determined to make it as impressive as possible. As you enter through the Porta dei Populi, grandly redone by Pope Alexander to welcome Christina of Sweden after he conversion to Catholicism, you see an obelisk of Rameses II and two twin churches. The churches appear to be identical, but this is actually an illusion created by Bernini, one of the architects brought in to finish the building of these churches.
The most important church on the square, however, is just inside the city gate. This is Santa Maria dei Populi, and it was the church of the Augustinian canons. These friars apparently had outstanding taste in art, and the chapels inside contain outstanding work by the likes of Rafael, Bernini, and Pinturicchio. To me, the finest items there are two pictures by Caravaggio. I was particularly struck by his Conversion of Saint Paul.
We also loved the amount of funerary monuments in the church, the one below. Using skeletons like this in art was called the “momento mori” or “remembrance of death.” It was supposed to make the viewer recall how short life was and how they ought to be aware that perhaps final judgment was lurking around the corner.
There are lots of people hawking things on the square as there are almost everywhere in Rome. John could not resist having his picture taken with these two guys even if it set him back 10€.
At the south end of the Piazza, three roads converge. We took the one in the middle, the Via del Corso. This is the longest straight street in the city of Rome. It was once used during Carnival for horse racing; now the racing is done by tourists running from shop to shop along the street. Most of the major chain stores like H & M have branches on the Via del Corso. Guess decided that nothing sells clothes like dead or almost dead Italians; perhaps an updated form of the momento mori.
There are also a number of churches on the street. The only interesting one, as far as we were concerned, was Saints Ambrose and Charles. This church belonged to the Duchy of Milan, and Ambrose and Charles Borromeo were the most famous bishops of Milan. The latter, a great leader of the Counter Reformation, has his heart on display in a reliquary behind the high altar.
The light seeming to emanate from the relic is really just a result of using the flash, but I thought it seemed sort of appropriate….
The far end of the Via del Corso is the monument to King Victor Emmanuel. Originally planned in the nineteenth century to commemorate the first king of a unified Italy, it was finished under Benito Mussolini. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that Italians often deride it, although it is a fairly popular place for them to get married.
From this point we tried hard to find a way to get to the metro. The Italian authorities have been trying to build a third subway line for 20 years, but there are so many archeological sites in this part of the city that it may never be finished. We could not figure out exactly what bus or streetcar to take, so we finally just hailed a cab and headed towards the Villa Borghese.
The Museo Borghese is considered probably the most important museum in Rome after the Vatican Museums. Tickets are not expensive, but they sell out days in advance and we had not been smart enough to order them online at home. So we had to get ours through a tour company. We had to pay five times the face value, but we also had an superb tour guide, Stephanie, an Canadian expatriate. She made it worth every penny.
The Borghese admits only two hundred people four times a day. Once inside, you have only 1 hour and 50 minutes to look at the art. Although the museum is not large, the quality of the art is so phenomenal that even twice that amount of time is not really enough. Stephanie showed us only about a dozen of the pieces, but she provided excellent interpretive background. This is a marvelous neoclassical sculpture by Antonio Canova of Napoleon’s sister Pauline Buonaparte Borghese as Venus Victrix. It caused a scandal as important women in the nineteenth century did not pose nude!
Other great pieces include Bernini’s David
and his Apollo and Daphne.
We also looked at some masterpieces of painting including Pieter Paul Ruben’s Deposition of Christ.
It was pouring when we entered the museum - so far it has rain for part of the day every day we have been in Italy, usually quite heavily - and it was still sprinkling when we left with Stephanie to do a tour of the park. We ended up in the Pincian Hill overlook. The light was quite splendid and caught the colors of the umbrellas and raincoats just perfectly.
I could not have done that in Photoshop no matter how hard I tried!
Pincian Hill overlooks the Plaza del Populi. So, in a way, we ended up where we had begun.
We walked down the hill past the Villa Medici, now home to the Academie Nationale Française, toward the Spanish Steps. We view was exquisite.
We had our best meal of the trip at Gusto, a restaurant Stephanie had recommended. The pappardelle with prosciutto was superb, as was the broccolini sautéed in olive oil and garlic. John had fun people watching. The woman behind us was somewhat sloshed and she and her friend seemed like they could have been on the Italian version of Absolutely Fabulous. iPhones are great for taking surreptitious pictures.
We are making an early night tonight because tomorrow we head off toward the south! Arrivederci, Roma!
