The figure on the right has her left arm raised, holding a bowl to either pour or receive libations. Falling from her upper arm, a red cloak is blown away by the wind, rippling behind her and revealing a form exemplary of classical beauty. Her head tilts to the right and her light, curly hair falls over her right shoulder as she rests some of her weight on her right hand and leg; the rest of her weight is settled on her left foot, with the right crossed behind it. A small piece of white fabric covers the rest of her modesty. 

            She sits on what once may have been a sarcophagus but is now a water basin, open to the sky, nearly full. A chubby baby stirs the water with its hand in the background. A relief on the front depicts what could be a battle or a procession gone wrong: a riderless horse charges from the left, and the people on the right seem to be surrounding and beating another figure on the ground. Part of the carving is hidden behind shrubbery in the foreground.

            The woman on the left fully sits on the sarcophagus, leaning her left arm on a covered jar, perhaps the one from which she poured libations to the other figure. She foils the clothes of the other figure, much more modest in a white gown with a bit of red fabric visible by her feet. Her hands are either gloved or discolored from centuries of existence, and a bracelet glitters on her left wrist. She looks at the viewer rather than the other figure, similarly light hair framing her face and falling down her back.

            In the background is a rural landscape. Rolling hills stretch out under a cloudy sky, dotted with lakes and trees. In the distance are buildings reminding us of the life beyond this idyllic scene. 

Villa Borghese, 6/5/19
Sacred and Profane Love, Titian 1514

            I had barely made it to Piazza Cavour before regretting my decision to walk all the way from St. John’s to the Museo Nazionale Romano. Even though I’d forgone my jacket and was wearing a dress, the combination of heat and humidity was near insufferable. However, I still enjoyed the walk and noticed things I hadn’t seen before, like a super-mini gas station near one of the bridges. Seeing it made me take a moment to think about whether I had actually seen any regular-sized gas stations in Rome and I realized that I hadn’t. 

            After struggling to distinguish the entrance of the museum from the emergency exits, I decided to disconnect for this excursion and leave my phone with my bag in a locker (a decision that was also partially influenced by my lack of pockets). I passed a herm in the entry hallway and came out onto a courtyard. It was free of the hustle and bustle of a sunny Roman afternoon, and I took a moment to look at the fountain and sit on a bench to begin taking notes. I initially thought that the benches were actually museum pieces on display, as they were made of a material very similar to the fountain and surrounding statues, so I almost didn’t sit down. A few moments after I did, a man wandered the courtyard before sitting on the other side of the bench I was on even though there were three empty benches around the courtyard. This wigged me out a bit because nobody else was there so I decided to head on into the museum. 

            It took me a while to find signage for the pieces in the courtyard, leading me to believe that there would be no signage at all, but I saw some once I rounded a corner into the covered hallway. I soon noticed that most of the signs would be on a wall opposite to the piece they were describing, perhaps not to distract a viewer as they looked at something. I personally found it somewhat annoying having to go searching for a sign instead of looking immediately to the right or left, but I appreciated being forced to decode and interpret a piece for myself. 

            Most of the signs had a diagram of the statue in white and grey to show what was original and what was replacement, but some parts being described as “ancient but not pertinent” confused me. If it’s “ancient,” is it part of the original? Does “not pertinent” mean not original? Some of the statues seemed to be mostly replacement, with some even changed to represent completely different deities by those who restored them. It made me wonder how much of a statue can be replaced while still being considered the original. 

            As I walked through the rooms, I noticed that some statues were roped off while most were not. I couldn’t figure out whether it was because some were older and more fragile, or if they tended to draw unwanted attention from visitors and needed an extra boundary. 

            Soon I stumbled into a room that contained excavations for a building underneath the museum and let me tell you, I have never wanted to climb into some ruins more than in that moment. The lights were turned off so the stairs down to the floor below seemed extra creepily inviting. There didn’t seem to be enough cleared out to give a tour through, but I think it would make sense if a guided tour through the museum turned on the lights. 

            After going upstairs, I realized that however nerve-wracking it might have been to traverse the city alone to get here, I enjoyed the freedom of being able to walk a museum at my own pace. I didn’t have to wait for anyone or feel the need to rush after someone and catch up to them. If I wanted to breeze through a room, I could do so without judgement. If I wanted to stare at a chaotic sarcophagus relief for fifteen minutes, nobody would tell me to hurry up. 

            Upon finding out that I couldn’t actually go to the third floor, I decided to take a moment on the second-floor balcony to return to the peace of the empty courtyard. Because it was evening, the sun was only hitting the tops of the walls so there wasn’t too much light reflecting off of all the white stone. I was able to just stand there and stare, soaking in the breeze and manageable temperature in the shade next to large potted plants. As I was debating how much longer I wanted to stay, a large family made that decision for me by disrupting the peaceful vibe. I gathered my things, feeling proud that I had been able to do a truly solo excursion – one step closer to being a true Roman. 

Palazzo Altemps, 6/1

            An older woman sits on a bench in the Piazza Cavour, short gray hair glinting in the sunlight. She goes to brush a piece behind her ear but finds nothing. How she misses her long hair; unfortunately, she’d had to cut it all off when she went into the Witness Protection Program. Beyond that, her “disguise” also consists of the nun’s outfit that she is wearing – her long black skirt, tights, and flats. She’d had to fight a little to get to keep her leather jacket, but was regretting wearing it in the hot sun. 

            As she eats a sandwich from a plastic takeout bag, she catches sight of a child running around the area in front of the fountain. She pauses, remembering her own grandchild in a country far, far away. That had been the hardest part of giving up her old life, she thinks – leaving him behind, knowing that she’d no longer be able to protect him from her witch of a daughter. 

            After she finishes her sandwich she crumples up the plastic and puts it in a brown paper bag next to her before just sitting in silence for a moment. She watches while the kid’s father lightly stops him from running, telling him that they have to go. As the kid goes to get a drink from the fountain, she slowly stands and waits near him, if only to see a smiling face so much like the one she used to see every day. The kid looks up and grins at her, respectfully pulling back to let her get a drink. Her gaze follows him as he runs back to his dad, and she waits just a moment before haltingly bending over to get a drink herself.

            She goes back to the bench where she has (incredibly trustingly) left her bag and picks it up, walking towards the bus stop. As she leaves, she pulls out her phone, bringing it closer to her face so she can see it better in the bright sunlight. This is all she has now: photos, videos, and voicemails. As she raises the phone to her ear, she crosses the street, out of sight. 

Piazza Cavour, 6/2/19

After a bit of a debacle sparked by disagreements about what direction we should be going in, Nicky, Katie, Emily Federico, Maisie and I finally got on a bus headed for Trastevere. The ride was thankfully uneventful and once we got off, we were able to orient ourselves next to the Tiber and use Google Maps to find our way to the church of Santa Maria. As some of us stopped to look inside a bookstore, I started taking notes on my phone because it was easier than pulling out my notebook. However, once we got to the church, we saw a nice big “No Phones” sign so I switched to old-fashioned notetaking. 

            The outer wall of the church was covered in various fragments of inscriptions, arranged so that they made nice, neat rows but with no other noticeable sense of organization. We knew that a Mass would have started by the time we got there, so we entered quietly. We watched and took notes from the back of the nave, not yet allowed into the roped-off aisles. There were probably about twenty people in total in the pews, with another twenty or thirty watching from benches in the back like us. 

            As the priest left and returned to the altar, I was struck by how inconsequential this series of actions was. I don’t know why I was expecting there to be a reaction. Was I thinking that this was like a concert where musicians are applauded on entry? No matter what I expected it to be, I was reminded that everyday religious practices are not about the spectacle and performance. Romans don’t come to this church to cross it off their bucket list or to see a grand audience like at the Vatican; they come to practice their faith. 

            The apse seemed the grandest to me. The gold decorations and gilding reflected light to create a warm, inviting feeling throughout the whole church. The columns to either side of us were inconsistent, both in color and order, so I figured they were probably spoliated like many others. As I looked up to the ceiling and the paintings all around the walls and apse, I noticed that even though this church was named for Mary, there were very few images depicting just her. 

            After the Mass, the electric lights in the church were turned off and we were left with whatever sunlight was coming through the windows to light the apse and whatever chapels people had paid to light. There must have initially been clouds dampening the sunlight because in a moment, the apse and the altar seemed to swell with magic and power as they got brighter and the gold shone even more. They became radiant as the sun glinted off of every corner and painted word. It was the most beautiful I’d ever seen a church look. 

            I thought about the Mass I’d seen, trying to imagine the faith and belief that carries one through the ceremony. I tried to understand how important it was to be here, feeling a tug in my chest and near my heart like a yearning. I had never wanted more than in that moment to belong to something as beautiful as this.

Santa Maria in Trastevere, 5/29

The ambience of water is much calmer than at the Piazza Navona. Some of it is consistent, coming from the fountain on the left, while the rest comes from raindrops that are blown from the trees whenever the wind picks up. It’s a soft, clean wind, sweeping around the top of the Aventine, well above the city and its dirtiness. The crunching of shoes on gravel grates its way through the dripping of water as people walk past. Birds are chirping all around, and the distant sounds of the cityscape below are barely distinguishable underneath the light screaming of the cicadas. 

            As another breeze passes through, I notice a very specific sound that can only be described as a dense “plunk” when the raindrops shaken off the trees hit the leather of my bag. I breathe this breeze in deeply and the cool air soothes my throat. The wind carries a hint of some sort of perfume or cologne, pitting a smooth vanilla against the crispness of the surrounding orange trees. 

            Any sense of tranquility that I had is broken by birds that sound like alarm clocks, seemingly arguing with each other from across the piazza. More water drips onto me and my notebook, but there is no wind, so it must be another fresh batch of rain. The paper under my hands is getting wet, and my pencil catches while I’m trying to write my notes. A large drop falls onto the top of my head and slowly trickles down the back of my neck. 

            A shout that could belong to a child or a bird echoes around the piazza, made more chaotic by the alarm clock birds tweeting even more angrily as their argument heats up. As people walk I notice that the gravel is crunching wetly, with duller clicks than dry gravel. I shift my weight to hear it under my feet and realize that they hurt from standing so long. My clothes are damp from the rain, and so the wind has become more chilling than soft. As I begin to close my notebook, the flipping of pages is mirrored by the flapping of wings as birds take flight. 

Aventine Hill, 5/27

Waves of hair framing his august face, a languid Apollo gazes at the masses from atop an austere pedestal. His curls fall below the nape of his neck, favoring one side as his head tilts to the left in commanding repose. He rests his right hand on top of his head, elbow up, shoulder back, to both give it a rest after a captivating cythara performance and display his heroic physique.  The aforementioned cythara is held in his left hand. He gestures with it, striking a balance between showing it off and holding it nonchalantly. It is decorated simply, a series of overlapping circles running up the side. The top of it rests on a cloth that falls from his left shoulder, which cascades behind him and back up over his arm before finally resting on the ground. The waves of the rippling fabric call attention to his smooth, muscled nudity. His right hip is higher than the other as he leans his weight on that leg in a pose of leisure and relaxation while his left leg is slack. 

To his left, height reaching just below his groin, a griffin sits in startled amazement. It leans to its left and turns its head to the right, looking up at him, star struck, mouth agape. Is its right paw raised in preparation to run away? Has it been startled by the noise? By Apollo’s cape tumbling over its back? Is it going to attack this stranger? Does it stare at his cythara and wonder how it could produce such an enchanting melody? Or does it recognize the player, and raise its paw in a gesture of reverence and respect? 

Capitoline Museum 5/25/19
Marble, from the reign of Hadrian
Statue of Apollo With His Cythara

            Though planned for the day we surmounted the dome of St. Peter’s, Em and I didn’t get the chance to go to the National Modern Art Gallery until yesterday. They took the lead on the transportation, so I just followed along as we took the metro to Flaminio and walked the rest of the way. I noticed that the Flaminio stop is different from the others I’ve been to in that there are long exit corridors and multiple significant ways to get out depending on where you want to go. After finding the right exit, we walked up the Viale Giorgo Washington and strolled through the park of the Villa Borghese. On one of the final corners we noticed a covered brick shrine right next to the street, about chest height and filled with flowers and notes. 

            When I got to the top of the stairs overlooking the museum, its grand size and classical architecture immediately took my breath away. Its Corinthian columns and detailed carvings and statues contrasted the words painted on the stairs, “Time is Out of Joint,” and a series of bronze lions prowling both the museum entrance and the café across the street. Some seemed to be stalking the entrance, perhaps guarding it, while others were lounging and even rolling on their backs. They gave me the sense that they had taken over the museum, and that kept me on my toes as I understood that I would see new and unexpected things. 

            Indeed, the very first gallery that we saw, the Main Gallery, hosted the Time is Out of Jointexhibit. I had trouble figuring out what time period exactly was supposed to be out of joint until I realized that they were all out of joint together. Photos from 1996 hung next to paintings from 1798 while bronze and marble statues scattered around the room seemed to contemplate the works alongside us. Some of the works weren’t even figurative, such as Alessandro Piangiamore’s “Le XXX Sorelle” (2016) – vibrant pieces that looked like cut and polished stone (they were the perfect size for me to take a photo for my phone background). The one that thematically stuck out to me the most was a marble statue of a girl in front of a series of photos of urban life. Not only was it the epitome of this gallery’s juxtaposition of modern and classical art, but it made me consider the presence of femininity in art from ancient to contemporary times. 

            One thing that I noticed as I walked through the wings was that there were absolutely no barriers defending the artwork. No lines on the floor, no ropes, no metal bars telling us how close we could get to the pieces. I felt like the museum trusted us to respect the space and the works. 

            The main gallery of the first side wing that I saw seemed to be centered around a theme akin to “breaking free,” with pieces that defied traditional borders and lines such as square canvases and intact images. A giant installation on the floor consisted of various blue squares of different shades pulling away from a larger overall square. There was a canvas with a pattern of points and divots that broke up the inherent flatness of a canvas, while on the other wall a giant piece of felt hung from the ceiling with a cut that made it fold open like a shirt collar. Most notable was the giant piece on the wall opposite the main entryway, Giuseppe Penone’s “Spaglia d’Oro su Spine d’Acacia” (2002). Hundreds, if not thousands, of inch-long acacia thorns swirled across multiple canvases, business end out and ready to protect its own piece if someone got too close. Each canvas was slightly out of line with the rest, adding to the three-dimensional aspect of the piece, and the thorns seemed to form a pattern that swirled around a piece of gold held up by fellow thorns. 

            I kind of had to breeze through the rest of the wings because I spent so much time in the first two (Em and I are definitelyplanning on going back). One room was full of various images of women, from the eroticized to the grotesque, and another seemed to be centered around the idea of pairs and companionship. Some phrases that I wrote for other rooms were “revelation through violence” and “disrepair vs fabricated disrepair.” I wish I’d taken photos of some of those pieces to remember why they made me write such dramatic things. 

            Throughout our self-guided tour of the museum, mostly prompted by the first gallery, I thought about how the curators had taken things from all sorts of time periods and all sorts of genres and put them all together in one place by theme, rather than separating by time or style like so many other museums. I definitely feel like this museum exemplifies the idea of a ~densely layered~ city like Rome, especially mirroring how so many buildings and monuments from so many time periods and groups of people coexist almost seamlessly. Just as a painting from 1798 seemed to fit right in alongside photos from 1996, so the Pantheon stands strong amongst the cityscape. 

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, 5/25/19

Other Works I Liked

• Lucio Fontana: “Concetto Spaziale” (1954)
• Nunzio: “Notte” (1986)
• Leoncillo: “Supplizio Azzurro” (1960)

She wasn’t expecting her day to go like this when she picked out this outfit. The white floral shirt suddenly seems too cheery, too light and flowy. Combined with washed-out jeans and white shoes, she feels out of place standing outside the exit to the crypts at St. Peter’s. Going into the tour, she had been excited to see ancient tombs, but now she can’t shake a feeling of unease. The further into the necropolis they had gone, the darker and colder and damper everything had felt. She had realized that her mother was not, in fact, crazy. The feeling of being watched by unseen eyes had followed her during the whole tour and then, she had felt a presence. A whole presence, exactly as her mother had described: like you were imagining it, seeing it in your mind’s eye while staring at nothing. 

            She checks her watch, impatient to get going and remove herself from the cacophony of anguish from the afterlife. Shifting from one foot to the other, she tugs in vain at her boyfriend’s shirt. He doesn’t budge, busy staring at his phone. She looks closer, seeing photos from the tombs, taken from sneaky angles. Not surprised, she lightly smacks him for ignoring the “No Cameras” signs. 

            He finally finishes and they walk off together, a visage of relief settling on her face. As they exit into the piazza, she remembers the moment that she had looked into the graffiti wall and had realized that whoever was resting there was not resting anymore. She had seen the spirit of the man buried under the sacred baldacchino, and had wished that she could ask him his name.

The most obvious sound permeating the Piazza Navona was the fountain slightly behind me, its babbling and splashing underlying all of the tourist and local chatter. It would have been monotonous if not for the slightly distressing squeaks of toys that cut sharply through the noise. As the wind lightly grazed my face and blew my hair, I felt the rough stone of the curb beneath my thighs, the harsh corner presumably rounded off by years, if not decades or centuries, of use. The wind must have been coming from behind the fountain because it smelled like a river, not like smoke or food from the restaurants in the piazza. It was refreshing to get a clear, crisp breeze like that. 

            As I continued to sit my calves were warmed by the sun-soaked cobblestone next to the curb. The inquisitive voice of a child stood out as they walked past, asking something of their companion. Seconds later, perhaps coming from the companion themselves, heels clicked on the stone walkway, creating a near cacophony of abrupt sounds as one of the toys squeaked in response. A few moments after, someone, probably after a long-winded explanation, said, “That’s why walking is faster than driving.” I would’ve been interested in hearing the explanation if I hadn’t already noticed how much the cars in Rome have to stop for pedestrians.

            I suddenly noticed how sore my shoulders were (courtesy of my choice of backpack) as the breeze picked up and I found myself wishing I had a heavier jacket. The wind flipped the pages of my friend’s notebook and if I focused hard enough, I could hear the faint scratching of their pencil on paper underneath the surrounding excitement. Another young person’s voice stood out, and I wouldn’t have been able to tell that they were speaking French if they hadn’t paused and struggled with an Italian pronunciation at the end of their sentence. As their voices headed towards the fountain I tuned back in to the general sounds of the piazza and noticed that the bubbling water now sounded more constant, less like a babbling brook and more like the steadiness of a river or waterfall – perhaps a reaching metaphor for the consistency and steadiness of the city of Rome. 

Getting to the Empire State Plaza in Albany was an adventure on its own. The group in Nicky’s car for the ride down (Em, Claire, Emma MacKinnon, and I) proved to be a fun mix of acquaintances-to-friends as we laughed at the other cars passing us and how we seemed to be racing. 

            Seeing the World War II memorial first, I think, gave the trip a sense of gravity that we were not anticipating as we discussed the purpose and characteristics of common memorials. The polished stone making up the walls of the fountain gave off an elegant vibe, accented by the careful engravings of significant dates and events from the war. The seclusion fostered by the circular enclosing of hedges seemed appropriate; it allowed a viewer to have a quiet moment to themselves, either to pay respects or to remember someone they lost. It may have felt disrespectful (and certainly disruptive) if the memorial had just blended in with the rest of the chaotic cityscape. 

            Having only seen the actual Plaza from pictures, the expanse of openness that I saw once we finally found a set of stairs to climb was impressive. Being as dreary and unpopulated as it was, it didn’t seem particularly exciting, but I imagined it would be fun for children to have all that space to run around and play. As the group climbed the mass of steps and seating in front of the Cultural Education Center, I began to see how this space could be used for public entertainment such as concerts and shows. 

            The view from the top of these steps, looking out to the other side of the plaza, was satisfying to anyone with a penchant for symmetry. The modernity of the justice and legislative buildings nicely framed the dated architectural style of the capitol building. From the top of those steps we could hear music and energetic shouting, and it soon became clear that while it may have been a weekend, the space was very much still in use by the community. To one side of the bottom of the steps was a group of people either rehearsing a performance or just having fun with a group exercise/dance session. 

Behind the group was a series of structures that were made out of wooden blocks. Initially some children were playing on it like it was a playground, and when the group went to check it out, I noticed that the wood actually felt and looked the same as the wood that made up my elementary school playground. In the middle was a significantly taller tower of blocks and I wondered whether anyone had tried and succeeded to climb it. As a short person who loves to feel tall, I had half a mind to try myself. Alas, I had to settle for stepping on some of the shorter blocks in the interest of safety. 

            As we walked down the length of the plaza, it felt even larger than before; the pools seemed deeper, the buildings taller, the sidewalk longer. Stops were made to point out some of the sculptures and features of the plaza, such as the seemingly random barriers that didn’t actually prevent any entry into the central area. One particularly interesting sculpture seemed to take on several different shapes depending on where we were standing. From one side, the arching yellow beams looked like an eye; from the other, perhaps a series of oddly shaped v’s and w’s and o’s.

            The experience in the actual plaza was nicely bookended with a stop at another memorial, this one commemorating firefighters who had given and will give their lives in service of their community. While not as literally walled off as the World War II memorial, it was also rather set aside from where most of the humdrum of daily life would take place. The similarly polished and engraved stone was also accented with a larger-than-life statue that conveyed the truly monumental sacrifice of those honored.