Galleria Pamphilj Doria

At length, minus a hat, and with the assistance of a high school Latin and Greek teacher with whom Vicki had a pleasant, helpful, and informative conversation, we arrived at the Galleria Pamphilj Doria. The GPD is somewhat like a Great House in the UK of GB: many impressive and beautifully-appointed state rooms. Only it's in Rome and on the outside looks like another huge cruddy old building with faded plaster falling off. On the inside, however, it's a palace. That's the Italian way. Anyhow, the Pamphilj-Doria family got its big break when its patriarch became Pope Innocent X. All along they had been collecting art, and the palazzo here contains some 700 works, about 300, I think, on display. For comparison, the National Gallery in London contains somewhat over 2,000 works. So this is a major private collection, very probably the largest private collection we have seen. To be sure, much of it exemplifies the perils of private collecting, particularly in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries: much is by artists who didn't quite pan out as hoped, many works by the biggies turned out actually to be "in the manner of" or "by a follower of" or "by the studio of" the biggie. Nevertheless, there are some major masterpieces here. The lot of it is presented in 17th century gallery style, that is, paintings stacked from wainscot to ceiling, in a bit of a jumble, historically, but historically correct for the period. It's an art-lovers paradise.

Courtyard

Actually, we liked the ground floor bath best of all

After the several state rooms and one of the better audio-
guides we have heard (done by the current Prince himself),
you get to the several corridors of art...

The ceilings of all of which are done is this interesting faux-
Roman style

A beautiful little Durer...apparently under-appreciated here

A Filippo Lippi Annunciation

Raphael's Double Portrait

An early Caravaggio--Rest on the Flight to Egypt--not the
"painter of light" yet, but you can still tell it's a Caravaggio
since the composition is organized around someone's
buttocks

Peter Breughel Elder's Naples, smallish, but a real treasure

And the greatest of the gems, Velasquez' Portrait
of Innocent X--Innocent is said to have rejected
the portrait as "too real"

And, in the same room of treasure, Bernini's
bust of Innocent X

Impressive place; glad we finally saw it

Lost In Rome

Well, we were never lost, exactly; we always
knew sort of where we were, and we had been
to all these places before, and had maps, and
knew how to get from one palace to another...it's
just that our navigatrix got confused about
which Palazzo Pamphilj we wanted (the Palazzo
Pamphilj Doria); but eventually we got there
and saw the great museum; and also had a nice
visit at the Brazilian Embassy and many other
places between the Piazza Navona and San
Luigi dei Francesci; after three administrative
days off--weather, work, desire to avoid the
3-day weekend city crowds--we were sort of
out of practice; oh, Vicki did lose her Quechua
hat somewhere on these journeys; lost in
Rome

After hopping off bus #64 and walking a few
blocks, we found ourselves not at the Piazza
Navona, but standing in the piazza between
the Pantheon and Santa Maria sopra Minerva,
both, however, on our current list of sights to
see; again

SM sopra Minerva has its share of treasures...
a later Michaelangelo

Tomb of Fra Angelica

A chapel frescoed by Felippo Lippi; St. Thomas Aquinas in
there somewhere, probably with a book

Ditto

SM sopra Minerva is Rome's only Gothic church; note
pointy arches and four-part vaulting; don't bother looking for
flying buttresses, height, light, etc; though many are quite
wonderful, I am coming to the conclusion that Italian Gothics
should get an asterisk; probably English Gothics too

It's nonetheless one of Rome's most tourist-friendly churches,
with this big helpful map showing the locations of all the
masterpieces

I can never walk past this my favorite building...

Through the oculus

Early Monday morning crowd

Moving right along, we are now in the church of Luigi dei
Francesci, which features 3 mature Caravaggios in its
St. Matthew chapel, all concerning, you guessed it, St.
Matthew; here, his martyrdom of Matthew

And here, his greatest hit, IMHO, The Calling of Matthew;
I recently discovered IfArtCouldTalk.org, which provides
clever captions for various masterpieces...this one is...
"Where's the owner of the double-parked red Pinto?!"

More seriously, here is the tomb of the great
landscape artist, Claude Lorrain, Turner's hero

Less seriously, here we are in the Piazza of
St. Eustace, gazing up at the Basilico of Santo
Eustachio--patron saint of deer hunters--whose
legend and depictions never fail to crack me up

And here we are now, blocks away in the
wrong direction, at the Piazza Navona and
Bernini's Fountain of Rivers

Piazza Navona, Domitian's circus; the Brazilian Embassy is
over on the left there, in the Palazzo Pamphilj

Roman Halloween

Actually, the churches can be spooky enough

Thus

We were back home by dark, so didn't really see all that many
kids dressed for the occasion; notably, in Italy, Halloween is
still a kid thing, not appropriated by adults

Except for these guys,who were apparently all going to the
same party...

Many stores had Halloween decor and products

Thus

And thus, in perhaps the most artful bread store we have yet
seen

Thus; not pictured...their display of Leonardo's various
inventions, all done in bread

Sort of Thai'd things together

Miscellaneous Walking In Rome

Thursday, Halloween Eve, was an administrative day mostly, getting the Grey Wanderer's engine oil and filter changed, then heading into Rome on bus and metro to walk around in hopes of finding an ATM, a post office, some bread, a big but inexpensive piece of luggage for our trip back to the States, and some miscellaneous sight-seeing. All goals were met, all expectations exceeded, all pigs fed and ready to fly.

Sprinter oil filter...many readers have asked what they look like

Circo Massimo; interestingly, the owner of the place where
we got the oil changed was named Massimo...

Us at the Bocca della Veritas

In case you ever need any pictorial insight into my personality
and character...

Inside the adjoining 6th century church of Santa Maria in
Cosmedin; very old; in the 8th century it was given to Rome's
Greek community

Very old

Downstairs was Hadrian's Crypt, which we thought might be
interesting, except it was the crypt built by the 8th century
Pope Hadrian 

Across the street, the Temple of Vesta,
more properly known as the Temple of Hercules
Victor; oldest marble structure to have survived
in Rome

And next to it, the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, more properly
known as the Temple of Portunus, the god of ports; the Tiber
river port was near here

And, just a block away, the Arch of Janus, a later empire
structure placed over a busy crossroads; Janus was the
god of gates and thoroughfares; one of the world's few
4-way arches

After all this miscellaneous sightseeing, time for a snack 

The walk continued; it was to be a 16,000 step day

And, before the markets at Termini and the
metro back to Laurentina, a stop at the Church
of St. Peter in Chains to see the very famous
Moses, one of Michaelangelo's greatest hits