Villa and Galleria Borghese, 2013

The Villa Borghese and its museum beckoned again. Vicki likes the Caravaggios and other things. I like the Berninis mostly. The Borghese is so popular, however, that visitors are limited to 2 hours (well, at 1:52:00 they start unceremoniously shooing you out), cameras are not allowed in the galleries. Etc. Below is Bernini's Apollo and Daphne. And Caravaggio's Madonna and Child with St. Anne. There's much more on the web, all worth looking at. Interestingly, of the half dozen Caravaggios at the Borghese, not one is of the buttocks-centered composition so characteristic of his work. Almost as if Scipione Borghese had said to his agent "OK with the fruit, OK with the 'painter of light' crap, but NO BUTTS; and No IFs or ANDS either!"

As exquisite as it gets; some of the leaves are so thin they
are translucent...

Supposed to depict Mary's agency in Jesus' works...
interestingly, it was rejected by the monastery/
confraternity/whatever that had commissioned it;
perhaps because of Jesus' lack of circumcision?
Lack of halo? Maybe they were some sort of snake-
handling cult like in the US? 

More Vatican Museum, 2013

It really is a pretty incredible place. In addition to all the usual favorites, we also took in a few new sections.

Vicki has always liked the Music-making Angels and Cherubs

Something you can't see at St. Peter's...close up, on this copy of the Pieta, Mary's
sash, where, in a fit of pique (no one could believe a 24-year-old could do this and
it was being attributed to other sculptors), Michaelangelo chiseled his name
("Michaelangelo Buonarotti of Florence Made This")

Up close of Raphael's Transfiguration, recently restored

Vicki says it is an excellent Egypt collection

Mosaic floor in the huge Sala Rotunda

Beautiful mosaics and in-lays all over

A detail from the great hall of maps...a ship bringing one of the many Egyptian
obelisks that now adorn Rome and the Vatican

In the Raphael Rooms, the Doctors of the Church, which no one ever looks at
because they are facing the School of Athens; embedded on the lower right,
in black, nearly obscured, but unmistakably...

Savanarola; evidently someone on Team Raphael had reformist sympathies 

Ceiling, same room, across from Apollo, the Muses, and Homer and Sappho, Poetry 
(Rebecca note)

In the Borgia Apartments, which we think we had not seen before, impressive
frescoes by Pinturicchio, a generation before Team Raphael

Interesting how much difference a generation makes sometimes

Also how much difference the change from Borgia to Medici Pope can make...

Lastly, before returning to the Sistine Chapel, we tarried in the
contemporary art section; here, Alice Lok Cahana's powerful
No Names; the road to Auschwitz, some claim, went through
the Vatican

We had visited the Sistine Chapel earlier in the day and had studied the
Botticellis and others that interested us (we are so over Mr. Twisty's ceiling
and Last Judgment), but wanted to return for a last look; alas, it was 4PM
or so and the chapel was so dark people were bumping into each other, with
no chance of seeing what they had come to see...perhaps saved
or sacrificed to see...a sad ending to an otherwise good day

Vatican Museum Out-Takes, 2013

Wednesday we spent at the Vatican Museum. We arrived and lined up for the 9:00AM opening, posted on the website, only to read a hand-lettered announcement that the great museum would be opening at 9:30AM. And these people want me to believe that snakes can talk?

We had noted further that the painting museum would be closing at noon, so we
headed there first; Vicki refers to these collections as the "Pina Coladas"; I'll
drink to that

Strafing enemy shipping...

"Here I come to save the day..."

St. Hulkus

Hmmm, perhaps a few more years in the cask, and the
increasing tannin will over-power that toe-jam aftertaste
...91 pts.

Torregiani's bust of Sixtus V; Torregiani, you recall, was the
guy who busted Michaelangelo's nose

Fish-eater

Device in the ever-popular Vatican Torture Museum

A size for every taste, every purse; it would be interesting
to know just how many gift shoppes are in the Vatican
Museum; and how many angels can dance on the head of a
pin...

In the Vatican Apostolic Library, Pope Felonius XVI forgives
all his own library fines

So we had lunch in the Vatican Museum pizzeria; here, the papal  pizza; not bad;
actually, I think they could do a whole lot better job of making it a theme 
restaurant...the possibilities are staggering (Rack of Lamb of God, e.g.)

Papal pilsener; or liturgical lager; the wine was only 2 euro a
glass; evidently they have hit on the recipe for making it from
water

Cornish pizza

"Sarcophagus of the two brothers"..."shell with busts of the deceased (the female
figure on the left, who was to represent the bride, took on male features during
the portrait execution"; we regard this miracle as convincing evidence that early
Christians permitted gay marriage; seriously

"You have such beautiful eyes"

Mr. Pointy; one of several figures from the
Baths of Caracalla

A dog and his boy

Holy Trinity, plus a little white birdie

Part of the Sistine Chapel you're not supposed to see...its fortifications

Basilica of St. Paul Outside The Walls, 2

Continuing our tour of St. Paul Outside the Walls...

The outside south aisle

In the nave now, looking forward to the triumphal arch, another giant mosaic,
an Apocalypse, a gift of Galla Placida, governor of Italy, daughter of Emperor
Theodosius (the capital had long since moved to Constantinople)(we visited
her tomb in Ravenna, her capital)

The Pantokrator does not look happy

View from the stern

West facade, more mosaic, more columns all around the
beautifully landscaped courtyard

Door incorporating original Byzantine plates

Another door, another rather graphic depiction of the end
of St. Paul; basic take-away here...if you see an angel
waving a palm frond in your direction, run away!

South transept Raphael

In the cloister, with its incredible inlaid columns all around

In the museum, a wall-sized photograph of Vatican II

Nice selection of spirits in the gift shoppe

Main facade and entrance

Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, 1

Four Roman basilicas date from Constantine, whose 313 Edict of Milan legalized Christianity in the Empire. They are the four "papal" churches of present-day Rome: St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, St. Peter's (destroyed in the 16th century to make way for the current St. Peters), and St. Paul's Outside the Walls. We had seen the first three on previous visits to Rome, but never had been to St. Paul's, and we were determined on this visit to complete the set.

I don't know how many churches we have visited in the last five years. Several hundred, I suppose, including some of the very greatest. So it's encouraging, to us at least, to know that we can still be absolutely knocked out and overwhelmed by yet another of these great buildings. St. Paul's was the largest of the original four, built on the traditional site of Paul's tomb. (Paul, the apostle to us gentiles, was beheaded in 67AD, story goes, outside the Aurelian walls of Rome; he was considered a Roman citizen and thus not to undergo the indignity of crucifixion). Constantine's original basilica was taken down later in the 4th century to make way for the present building, still 4th century, and still second largest of all Rome's churches. St. Paul's burned in 1823, mostly the nave, but enough survived, and the subsequent re-building adhered quite faithfully to the original 4th century plan...together with the numerous ornaments added over the centuries. Nothing we had read prepared us for the immensity and majesty of this church, not to mention its great antiquity, and we spent a couple hours marveling. If you go to Rome, don't miss it.

What the interior looked like prior to the fire (from the museum)

After the fire

So, disoriented a bit, we walked in the north transept, thinking
it was the main entrance, and were already wowed looking at
the golden coffered ceiling, the portraits of the popes, the
giant alabaster windows, and

In the half dome, the largest Pantokrator mosaic I have seen yet--maybe 100
feet across--

And a humble little Pope Honorius III, responsible for this incredible 12th
century mosaic

Then we are in the altar area looking into the tomb of St. Paul

And then we turn around and look abaft and see the colossal nave, 80 granite
columns, a "forest of columns" as many writers have put it, two giant aisles on
either side, ever more golden coffered ceiling, portraits and paintings, Corinthian
capitals everywhere, more alabaster than in all the previous Italian churches
we've seen...

Thus

And thus

And thus; the alabaster was a gift from the King of Egypt...

The Easter Candle, a huge carved column,12th century

The south transept, with a great Raphael

The inner south aisle