On our way to the next church, we passed the Temple of Adrian...or what remains of it. This is typical Rome (even going back to ancient times) - building new things within the old (and often stealing materials from the old to build the new!). So, all of the columns are what is left of the old temple, and inside someone built a bank! Actually, at one point on the tour Simona pointed out two columns that we were passing - all that remains of Nero's giant bath complex (although I think people were all too glad to destroy Nero's handiwork). The penultimate (that's a shout-out to you, Ellen!) church on our tour of Baroque Rome was Sant'Ignazio di Loyola. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Ignazio was granted sainthood around this time, so naturally he has a church. Simona said that this church is about as Baroque as it gets. Sant'Ignazio was the founder of the Jesuit order, an order reknowned for its learning. It was designed by mathematician Father Orazio Grassi, and boy did he do a good job! This whole church is about illusion - there is a fake second story painted onto the ceiling, and a fake dome. It's ridiculous how believable it is. The idea with the ceiling is that it doesn't exist; the walls of the church just extend right on up to heaven. As for the dome - I mentioned it was fake; it is painted on a round, flat piece of ceiling! I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it, but go Wikipedia this church and that is the first picture you see. It's not just the picture - it really does look like a real dome when you're standing in the church; as I said the whole church is just ridiculous - but in the best way, of course! I mean, I can't think of a better way to combine math and art to affect your senses than by what was created in this building.
Next stop: the best bar in all of Rome! First off, I should probably explain that in Italy, a bar is not somewhere to buy alcoholic beverages; it is a coffee house! As we all found out, the tour included a drink at this bar as a bit of a pit-stop. Even though the bar is reknowned for its coffee, it was just too hot for me to try one (and I'm not exactly a coffee-lover anyways, although I have had coffee at a bar over here, so I have had the experience), so I took an iced tea instead. In Italy, the iced tea is very sweet. Anyways, Simona said that all of the politicians hang out here during the week (obviously didn't get to see any since it was Saturday). In the picture, Simona is the gal in the blue dress with the fan.
After our break we went off to see the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (the Fountain of Four Rivers). It is being restored right now, so no water running, but there were large plastic panels that allowed us to look at it. It is in the forground of the picture, and behind it is another of Borromini's churches, although it is rarely open and we did not get to go inside. The fountain is by Bernini, and naturally, he stole the project from Borromini. Borromini had been commissioned to build a fountain on the site but Bernini gave the pope a bronze cast of his idea for the project that impressed the pope enough for him to change the commission. Besides being brilliant in design (remember, Bernini could sculpt if he couldn't build), the piece also included an interesting figure: Bernini had gotten the pope's sister-in-law to model for one of the statues in this bronze example! Simona said that Bernini would have been a good manager if he was around today - I think she was right. So Bernini took over and built the fountain, with the four rivers representing the four continents of the world (that's all they knew about at the time): America (represented by a crocodile-ish creature, some prickly-pear cactus, and some gold coins), Asia (bamboo), Africa (a lion), and Europe (a horse). There are also four people carved into the fountain, and like the Trevi, it is a mixture of the theatrical with the natural, and, unlike the Trevi, it is a statement about the church's influence on the world.After this we quickly saw "The Calling of Saint Matthew" by Caravaggio - it is in the French church of Rome (all masses are conducted in French - I've actually also been into the American church in Rome where all the masses are in English), which closes to the public at 12:30, and we got there at 12:25! (Our tour unfortunately started late as mentioned earlier.) So Simona took us in so we could look at the painting, in addition to the other two paintings in the alcove: "The Inspiration of St. Matthew" and the "The Martyrdom of St. Matthew", and then she took us outside to talk about Caravaggio. Not going to say too much - don't have any pictures (although obviously it's not too difficult to dig them up on the internet), but will say a bit. Caravaggio lived on the streets and believed that an artist should put the same amount of work into drawing a piece of fruit as into drawing Christ. He used real people as models for his paintings, which often rubbed the church the wrong way (real, ordinary people don't look very saintly, in general), but this choice made his paintings very realistic and believable. Simona said that Caravaggio mixes the theatrical with the real to invoke emotion in the observer and that he always depicts scenes at the highest level of emotional intensity. I have to say, I think all three Baroque geniuses were very interesting people, both personality-wise and art-wise.
And thus ends my Baroque tour of Rome! This takes us up to about 12:45 on my first day in Rome, and I didn't leave until 7, but don't worry - the next half of my day won't take nearly as many posts and will for the most part be pictures....Next up, my turbo-tour of the Vatican Museums!
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