HD trip to Rome. Jan 2010

Posted: January 10, 2010 | Author: cateof | Filed under: travel | Tags: bernini, monument, photos, Rome, travel, vatican | 3 Comments »

I traveled to Rome between 31st of December and 4th of Jan 2010. 4 days are not enough to visit Rome, however I think I managed to collect some frames for the “Piano Images”.  You can click in every image to enlarge. The original image is 2592×1944, so give it same seconds in order to load completely. Hope you like it.

If you ever get a chance to go to Rome then you should update your wish list with the following areas/monuments.

St. Peter Basilica and Square.

Work on the basilica was completed during the pontificate of Urban VIII in 1626, but it was only between 1656 and 1667 that Bernini, commissioned by Alexander VII, planned and constructed the great colonnade in Saint Peter’s Square with the 1st century B.C. obelisk in the middle. Originally set in the centre of Caligula’s Circus, where Saint Peter was martyred, it was moved to the present site in 1585 by Domenico Fontana, who was directed to do so by Sixtus V.

St. Peter’s Interior

(up row)

Left corner (up): La Pietà (1499) is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture by the renowned artist Michelangelo Buonarroti. This famous work of art depicts the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion. In subsequent years the Pietà sustained much damage. Four fingers on Mary’s left hand, broken during a move, were restored in 1736 by Giuseppe Lirioni and scholars are divided as to whether the restorer took liberties to make the gesture more ‘rhetorical’. The most substantial damage occurred on May 21, 1972 (Pentecost Sunday) when a mentally disturbed geologist named Laszlo Toth walked into the chapel and attacked the sculpture with a geologist’s hammer while shouting “I am Jesus Christ”. Onlookers took many of the pieces of marble that flew off. Later, some pieces were returned, but many were not, including Mary’s nose, which had to be reconstructed from a block cut out of her back. Toth was not charged with any criminal offence after the incident. He was hospitalised in Italy for two years. On his release, he was immediately deported to Australia, where he apparently still resides.

Right corner (down): The Baldachin. Underneath this structure is the “Tomb of Saint Peter”, where, according to tradition, the remains of the Apostle are kept, making it one of the places most venerated by Christians. Made by Bernini.

(d0wn row) St. Peter in his throne

Pinacoteca Vaticana and Vatican Museum

It took me 3 hours in the queue in order to get in the Vatican Museum, but it deserved it’s money and time waste. By far the best collection I have ever seen. You need plenty of time to browse everything, so get prepared. You can avoid the time wasting in the queue if you are a member of a group or if you have booked tickets online.  In any case don’t visit Rome if you don’t plan to get in the Vatican City.

Second row on the right is Sistine Chapel ceiling: Under the patronage of Pope Julius II, Michelangelo painted 12,000 square feet (1,100 m2) of the chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512. The Sistine Chapel is best known for being the location of Papal conclaves; it is, however, the physical chapel of the Papal Chapel.

Third row on the left is  St Jerome, Leonardo da Vinci oil on wood.

Right corner from the Pius-Clementine Museum the sculpture represents the Trojan priest Laocoon who warned his fellow citizens about the ruse of the wooden horse, a gift of the Greeks, so he was condemned to die by the wrath of Athena with his two sons.

Raphael’s Rooms in the Vatican City

The “Expulsion of Heliodorus” from the Temple of Jerusalem represents the sacredness of Church property: Heliodorus, after stealing the treasure in the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem, is captured by Gods’ messengers, while a group of people including Julius II watch the scene.

The “School of Athens” is one of Raphael’s most famous paintings: two figures, Plato and Aristotle, stand out against an ancient architectural background, probably symbolizing the new St Peter’s. Plato resembles Leonardo and points towards the sky, alluding to the world of ideas, while Aristotle turns down the palm of his hand, a reference to the rational principles of his philosophy.

the “Fire in the Borgo”, representing a miracle performed by Leo IV in 847, when the Pope extinguished a huge fire in the area around the Vatican basilica, simply by appearing at the benediction loggia and making the sign of the cross.

Raphael together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci forms the traditional trinity of great masters of the High Renaissance period. More here.

Romulus and Remus

Romulus and Remus, the  founders of Rome, nursed by a wolf.

Piazza Navona

Details from the Fountain of the four rivers in Piazza Navona. Commissioned by Pope Innocent X, the fountain was designed by Bernini and executed largely by his assistants.  (The Danube not pictured here)

[+] The Rio della Plata–a Negro with coins on the ledge representing the riches of the Americas

[+] The Nile River with covered head–because the source of the Nile was then unknown (at least by Europeans)

[+] The Ganges River, representing Asia

Castel S. Angelo

Castel S. Angelo, whose imposing mass still dominates the panorama of Rome, and which is known as the Mole Adriana, was not originally built for defensive purposes but as the funeral monument of the emperors.

Every statue in front of the main gate, at the bridge, is a masterpiece.  At the base of each sculpture is a line from the Bible in Latin. The verses inscribed on many of the sculptures are dissimilar to the verses readers find in today’s Bibles, because they are based on an old and superseded scripture translation called the Latin Vulgate. At the statue on the right corner (down) we read: ”In aerumna mea dum configitur spina” meaning The thorn is fastened upon me (Psalm 31:4, Latin Vulgate). According to Mark 15:17, Roman soldiers crowned Jesus with thorns before they crucified him.

Roman Forum & the Colosseum

It is the central area around which the ancient Roman civilization developed. Citizens referred to the location as the “Forum Magnum” or just the “Forum”. In latin the name “forum” means ” a place out of doors” and comes from the root foras, meaning outside. The roman forum began as an outdoors meeting place, something like a village of commons, where people from the various tribes who occupied Rome’s seven hills in prehistoric times met to talk and trade, to discuss matters relating to the common good, and later to worship their gods and bury their dead. Its location is a low, shallow valley between the Palatine, Capitoline, and Esquiline Hill. At the end of this area you can find Colosseum on the main symbols of Rome.  The last image is from Capitolium which is nearby.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Meat Bernini before you die.  On the left: Bernini’s baroque Triton Fountain (Italian Fontana del Tritone) is located in Piazza Barberini near the entrance to the Palazzo Barberini and Via Veneto. On the right: The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa is the central sculptural group in white marble set in an elevated aedicule in the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria.

Trastevere

The district’s name derives from the Latin words “Trans Tiberem”: Beyond the Tiber river. Today Trastevere is the heart of the Roman night life, rich in pubs, restaurants, clubs.

Campo dei fiori

On the right:  The small church of Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte, only open on Sunday afternoons for the short time of a religious function.Up to the 19th century, the duty of the religious congregation for whom this church was first built in 1575, was to go into the countryside and collect the many corpses of the peasants and the poor, simply left in the open air, and give them a burial in the church’s cemetery. Having become too small for its duties, the church was then rebuilt into its present shape in 1733-37.The decorations of the church explicitly refer to the pityful yet gruesome activity of the congregates, by featuring several skulls on the façade, as well as other allegories of time and death (winged hour-glasses, skeletons, etc.), such as the ones on the two old alms-boxes. The cemetery, housed in a vault below the church, once stretched up to the nearby Tiber, but it had to be shortened in the early 20th century, when the walls along the river’s banks were set into place, to prevent frequent floods.

Some uncategorized places and themes

ll

Row 1.  The Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II (National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II) or Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland) or “Il Vittoriano” is a monument to honour Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy.  From Wikipedia:  Italian unification (Italian: il Risorgimento, or “The Resurgence”) was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century. Despite a lack of consensus on the exact dates for the beginning and end of this period, many scholars agree that the process began in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna and the end of Napoleonic rule, and ended some time around 1871 with the Franco-Prussian War.

Row 2. The pines of Rome. On the left is Scalinata at Piazza di Spagna.

Row 3.  Giordano Bruno, born Filippo Bruno (1548 – February 17, 1600), was an Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer best known as a proponent of heliocentrism and the infinity of the universe. He was burned at the stake by authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy. Today, the place is the center of an annual commemoration by atheists and freethinkers. On the right photo is Villa Borghese Pinciana.

Row 4. On the left a detail from Villa Borghese. On the right Trevi Fountain at night. A traditional legend holds that if visitors throw a coin into the fountain, they are ensured a return to Rome.

---