Rome - page 11

26^th Continued

Next, I went to the museum in Palazzo Maximo.  They had BC era mosaics and statues (most of which were early Roman copies of Greek originals). 

Now that’s a nice mosaic.  I’d like to stand in the middle, look down and spin around.

For a while I had been caught up with the idea of finding the emperor that looked the most like me.  I definitely have a facial shape that resembles the ancient Romans but I wasn’t finding a good match in the emperors.  Maybe this guy?

Me?

I overlaid the images and found that the biggest differences actually seem to be in the forehead and the angle of the ear, otherwise things line up pretty closely.

There was a lot in this museum but you’d have to be pretty heavily interested in history for me to cover it all.  We’ll just skip along to some highlights.

Caligula

This is what a fairly young Caligula looked like.  This guy was seriously fucked up.  He was the fourth Roman emperor.  From what I remember from the history channel, as a child he was molested by his grandfather Tiberius (third Roman Emperor).  Once he took power, he really stepped up the depravity to an all new level.  He was even raping married noble women that he invited to the Imperial residence as guests.  Eventually he was murdered by one of his own bodyguards (in a dark tunnel that I walked through without even realizing it at the time). Caligula had been taunting him by calling him gay - apparently to such a degree that the guy lost control and killed him (I’m not making this up).

A Niobid - apparently importantand/ influential                                                             A big statue of Minerva

The Niobid is getting shot in the back with arrows.  The statue of Minerva is apparently also quite valuable.  It is composed of different materials and was an idol used for cult worship.  So when I was looking at the Niobid, I thought to myself “hey, a female character that doesn’t look like a guy with breasts slapped on.”

I think we can blame Michelangelo for all the masculine ladies set in stone (he was really good at naked men, remember) although there might be more to it than that.  Anyway, this thought became suddenly relevant a while later when I found this statue:

Now the thing is, I had read about this statue somewhere, but I didn’t realize it was in this Museum, and I certainly didn’t realize that this was it when I first walked up to it and was provided the above view.  I thought, “Hey, this statue actually captures the essence of what makes a woman attractive.”

Then I walked to the other side and noticed this:

Sleeping Hermaphrodite

Oh ho, the joke is on me! Yes, yes anonymous sculptor, you got me and yes, maybe I even feel a little dirty now.

I wonder how many people are like the woman off to the left who walk up, take a picture and walk away without ever noticing the penis?

I saw more statues and a bunch of old coins.  It’s odd, but if I had seen just one of these ancient coins by itself, say at somebody’s house, I would have been quite fascinated, but seeing hundreds, maybe thousands of them together, I was completely underwhelmed.

Gold!

So the discus thrower must be the most copied Greek statue ever, and I can see why.  The detail is very impressive.

Roman copy of Greek Discus Thrower

I was really tired today and ready to go home.  I took a nap.  I only had one more full day in Rome left and my ticket for the museum also gave me admission to the Museo Altemps as well, so I figured I knew what I would be doing tomorrow.  The biggest challenge left was spending the last 25 Euros of cash I had left without going over.

Mystery solved:

Just beyond the bus depot there is a whole row of permanent stalls of booksellers selling old books.  This immediately struck me as odd because if you’ve ever looked through old books you’ll have noticed that they are almost entirely crap.  Who were these ‘booksellers’ kidding?  And next to a bus station of all places!  Walking by, days later, I observed that, surprisingly, they had a decent number of browsing customers.  That’s when I noticed, hidden subtly amongst all the old books were porno magazines and DVDs.  Ah-ha!  But is all the subterfuge necessary?  I guess so.

Another thing I noticed.  There are no convertibles in Rome. This place is temperate so why not?  I think I might have just realized the answer.  I won’t leave my own convertible parked on the street in San Francisco over night because I’m afraid of drug addicts slicing through the canvas so they can scour my seats for change.  Given all the gypsies in Rome, they probably have the same problem. Of course, what about garages?  Oh I don’t know.

May 27^th

The Last day

One last walking tour of the city, one more Museum, one last page of html (I’d better appreciate this in the future, as it certainly turned out to be more work than I was expecting)

This church has a playful design

The Museo Altemps is in the Palazzo Altemps.  It has a very old feel to it, like it hasn’t felt the touch of wealth in a while.  The aged ceilings looked old enough to be made out of the remains of Noah’s arc.

This giant head was apparently the pride of the museum back in the day when it had an influence on visiting artists

The Dying Gaul Killing Himself and His Wife is the most famous sculpture in the museum.

It sucks to be the Gaul’s wife

I was surprised that the artist used a piece of marble with such a large imperfection.

For the most part, I don’t like relief sculptures, but this one depicting a battle was impressive.

What a clusterfuck!

The museum had this glass plate on loan and they were just so proud of it.  Despite the fact that there were posters advertising it in practically every wing of the museum, there wasn’t a single word written about it in English, so I can’t tell you anything about it.  It has got to be exceedingly rare.  They had a light set up to make it look nice.  It does make a good photo.

old blue plate

For some reason, halfway through the trip I became fascinated with the concept of washing someone else’s feet as a sign of respect (actually, it started when I was washing my own feet).  Needless to say, the discovery of this relief was exciting:

Why is she crying?  What’s the significance of the foot washing?  Who’s lurking around the corner?  Nova Nuptua, what’s that mean – new marriage?    And who’s Winckelmann?  It looks like this was part of a fountain.

On my way back to the Hotel I snapped a picture of Trevi fountain.  It is probably the most photographed site in Rome.  At any time of day or night there are at least a hundred people (usually more like three or four hundred) packed into the tiny plaza facing it.

Trevi Fountain

My picture kind of sucks, you’re much better off checking out the link.  I can’t get over how it’s built right into a building and people actually have windows looking out from the fountain facade.  People actually live in this monument.  How would it feel if your bedroom window was the subject of a few thousand photos every day?

My mood really is a product of hunger.  Later in the day I was on my way out of the hotel to get some food.  I loitered in the lobby while the clerk dealt with an old couple.  Eventually he finished and asked me what I needed.  I realized in a half-dazed state of partial comprehension that I was waiting to get my key as if I had just arrived.  I was so out of it, I had left it in the room and not realized anything was wrong.  I really did need to eat.  Luckily the doorman interpreted for me that I needed his help because I had locked my key in my room.  One bowl of bean soup, a piece of lasagna, some bread and a bowl of gelato later I was in a state of absolute contentment.  I was light as if drunk and perfectly relaxed in my little chair under the awning on the roadside.  The head waiter and his little ‘family’ of locals somehow felt like my family and as they teased each other in Italian I somehow felt like I was in on it too.  I was no longer in a hurry to go home.  I was no longer in a hurry to go anywhere.

During the course of the trip, I had tried to find the archetypical image of Rome.  Was it the Colosseum?  Was it a street lined with the ubiquitous rust and ocher colored buildings?  I find it suiting that this picture ended up being the last picture I took.  I was walking up a small inclined back street and I saw this: 

Two heavy, ochre, 5-story buildings framing a pair of Roman pines framing a massive monolithic medieval stone tower, right in the middle of a busy urban area.  It seems to sum up Rome in a single image; age, grandeur and a little mystery.