Europe 24 - Rome, Day 3

The next morning was not an early morning. We are no longer the sorts of people who can turn the lights out at 1:30am and spring up ready to take on the day when the sun rises. To be honest “springing up when the sun rises” wasn’t anything I did when I was younger either, and certainly not while on vacation. I will leave that to the people who think jogging is fun.

No, it was a slow rise to the day and then a leisurely breakfast at the apartment before we headed out to our first destination.

One of the places that came up as we were planning this trip was the Capuchin Museum, with its attendant Crypt. It seemed like something interesting and worth exploring, so we bought tickets online and this was the day for them. They were timed tickets, but in the end it didn’t really matter – the Capuchins were happy to see us whenever we arrived. We rode the 83 Bus down to the museum, collected the headphones for the audio tour (which I promptly returned, as they did not fit into my “see it first, figure it out later” tourism strategy), and noted with some disappointment the sign that politely but very firmly declared that photography was not allowed.

I actually did take a couple of pictures in the first room we went into because I thought they only meant that I couldn’t take pictures in the Crypt, but then I figured I should go back and ask and they said no, not even in the museum. Unlike the constant similar warnings I experienced last year in Prague, these people seemed to mean it. So I put the camera and phone away and just kind of walked through the place.

It’s an interesting museum if you like religious history. It covers the history of the Capuchins from their origins right up to the present day, so there’s medieval and Renaissance artifacts as well as things that are less than a decade old. It’s pretty comprehensive and well done. It was probably more Capuchin than I was ready for on a hot Wednesday morning, but that’s on me really.

And then we got to the Crypt.

What can one say about the Crypt at the Capuchin Museum in Rome that hasn’t already been said to legions of therapists across the globe? Probably not much, but it’s worth a shot.

First, it’s not underground, which I had thought was kind of a requirement for crypts of any description but apparently not. Nor is it enclosed, which I’d thought was another requirement. Instead, it’s a hallway about fifty meters long, open on to a courtyard on the left, with six little alcoves on the right side each about five to seven paces deep. You walk slowly down the hallway, alcove by alcove, until you finally get to the end and are released from the experience. This can take a while, depending on the speed of the tour group in front of you.

Second, well.

In one of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide novels he describes a character as having a mind that was “not merely twisted but actually sprained,” and this line echoed in my head the entire time I was there because when you are in the Crypt you understand in a bone-deep sort of way that you stand in the presence of madness.

Each alcove features a different display of human bones arranged neatly in artistic patterns – sometimes by type of bone (femurs! femurs everywhere!), sometimes as complete skeletons still in decaying monks’ habits, and sometimes in some artistic fashion whose rationale was known only to the long-dead monk who created them. There are dioramas, there are patterned designs on the walls and piles on altars, and the whole thing contains more human bones than you would think someone could fasten together as an art project before getting some kind of counseling. Maybe they didn’t do that sort of thing back then, but perhaps they should have. According to a quick internet search, there are the bones of some 4000 people here. The net effect is a ghastly display of the macabre which the Capuchins insist is simply meant to be a healthy reminder of the swift passage of life on Earth and the inevitability of death. And perhaps it is that too.

But standing in front of it all and moving from one alcove to another, it mostly reminded me of the fragility of the human psyche and what happens to it when it is overwhelmed.

For what it’s worth, the Marquis de Sade enjoyed it when he toured the Crypt, noting that he had “never seen anything like it,” which one certainly hopes is true. “A German priest of this house executed a funeral monument worthy of an English genius,” he wrote, and you could probably spend a long time parsing out all of the degrees of shade that description cast.

There is also a gift shop.

We emerged back into the bright sunshine of the living and walked the half block down to a fairly large piazza where we found another of Bernini’s statues, kind of, this one known as the Fountain of the Bees.

The original fountain was commissioned by Pope Urban VIII in 1644 as a horse trough, and in his honor Bernini made sure that there were bees on it – the symbol of the Barberini family, of which Urban VIII was a member. The fountain was taken apart and removed in 1880 as a traffic obstruction, and when the city government went to rebuild it in 1915 they discovered that many of the pieces were missing so they commissioned a copy by Adolfo Apolloni who used travertine stone salvaged from an ancient Roman ruin rather than the white marble of the original and that’s the one you see today. It’s right there on the street corner and like most fountains in Rome you can drink the water if you want.

Our next goal was the Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, which was a short walk around the big piazza – mostly sticking to the shady parts, at this point, as it was nearly 100F (38C) – and then up a long and rather steep hill. You forget that Rome was built on seven hills, and this may sound romantic and vaguely mythic but I assure you those hills are quite real and rather a slog on a hot day. Eventually we reached the church and it was lovely, as these things tend to be.

It was built in the 1600s – most of the 1600s, as it took a fair bit of time to complete – and the façade is a rather uncommon design, with its undulations and bays. It’s not symmetrical inside either, though it is striking.

There are interesting things to look at, whether you are staring up at the dome or down at the floor.

And if you wander around a bit, past the rather utilitarian room with the woman at the sewing machine repairing vestments, you will find the courtyard in the back. I never did discover the crypt underneath the place, though I may have been the only one of us to miss it.

Touristing is hungry work, so we decided at that point that what we really needed was some gelato. Fortunately Kim had found a website listing nut-free options in Rome and one of those was a gelato shop not all that far away so we walked back down the hill until we found it.

It was a bit of a comedy of errors trying to order the gelato, which was surprising given that they basically had one flavor (with a couple of variations) to offer, but it worked in the end and it was tasty. We sat on the benches outside and watched the world go by for a while as we ate.

About halfway up the hill we’d just come back down was the Palazzo Barberini, a 17th-century palace which now houses the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica – the Gallery of Old Art, more or less. We’d noticed it on the way up to the church, and on the way back down to the gelato place we decided that we would make a third journey on that hill and go back to explore it.

But first there was a need for more snacks, so we stopped at a grocery store and found interesting potato chips and other things. It was a cash-only store, much to the disappointment of about half the tourists there who expressed their sadness in a babel of languages before leaving but we had enough euros with us to keep moving up the rapidly shrinking line and all was well. It’s good to have actual cash now and then.

Eventually we found our way to the Barberini and went in. They made us leave all of our bags in the storage lockers – the only place on our entire trip that did that – and our first mission took us down some very long stairs to a largely uninhabited basement area, but eventually we were ready to see the sights. As was our habit, we arranged a meeting time and place before striking out on our own, though our paths did cross from time to time.

There is a world of art in this place, and you really can’t expect to see it all. Some of it is sculpture.

My favorite was this one, created by Antonio Corradini in 1743. It’s just fascinating how he made the fabric look transparent in marble.

Mostly, though, there are paintings. All sorts of paintings by all sorts of people, many of whom you’ve heard of though many more might be news. My own art history knowledge is pretty thin and I tend to be more of a “I know what I like when I see it” sort of art appreciator, but even for me there was a lot to enjoy.

There were medieval artworks.

There were more modern paintings, many of which I photographed on the theory that I could put them in my Western Civ II slideshows to make class more interesting. I mean, I’m a pretty good teacher, but staring at me for 75 minutes twice a week gets old fast.

The two central figures in this one seem to have a lot to say to one another.

Sometimes it was possible to compare how different artists approached the same subject. Mary Magdalene, for example, had several works devoted to her that reflected rather different visions of the scene.

The Biblical story of Judith beheading Holofornes also seemed to be a favorite subject.

That second one is by Caravaggio, who had several other paintings in the museum as well.

This one was painted by Raphael.

And somehow, in the middle of a Roman palace full of Italian art, there was Henry VIII’s satisfied mug staring back at me. This is a painting I already have in my Western Civ II slideshow, so it was interesting to see it in person.

Of all the paintings, though, I have to say that this one was my favorite.

For a long time it was attributed to Guido Reni and thought to be a portrait of Beatrice Cenci, a young woman who murdered her sexually abusive father in 1598 and whom Pope Clement VIII had tortured and executed for doing so despite considerable protest from the citizens of Rome who felt Cenci was justified in her actions. There are a lot of questions as to whether Reni actually painted this – most modern experts now attribute it to Ginevra Cantofoli, and it is interesting how much of a difference it makes knowing that it was painted by a woman rather than a man, given the story behind it – or even if it is of Cenci at all, but it is possible to appreciate a work of art just for its own sake and it is a lovely painting whatever the story or artist.

Like most of the museums in Rome it seems, the Barberini is a bit of a rabbit warren and you can wander through it for a very long time without retracing your steps. Everywhere you look is more art, and it’s almost always worth looking up at the ceilings as well.

The thing about that particular ceiling is that it soared over a room that was objectively bigger than my entire house. There were a couple of benches kind of tucked up against one wall and you could sit there and wonder just what on earth anyone would do with a room this big. Basketball? Cotillions? Chariot races? Eventually we decided that the room probably sat entirely empty except for a desk at one end and if you wanted to speak with the reigning Barberini you would be led to this room and have to cross the vast expanse of space in echoing silence to get to the desk, where there would be no chair for you. Chairs are for Barberini princes. You should have thought of that when you were born. I have no idea if that is anything remotely like what really happened, but it should have been.

They also had a couple of displays of modern art sort of off to the side and at one end of the place.

If you went out and around a corner to a different section of the place there was an entire exhibit of American art, and prominently displayed at the entrance as one of those works of art was a trash can from Milwaukee.

Duchamp was here. He said hello.

We found our way back out into the sunshine and decided to continue our Bernini hunt. Apparently the biggest prize of all was not that far away, at the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.

It’s another astonishingly lovely place with all sorts of art, and if you like this sort of thing then this is the sort of thing you will like. We’re fans. We had a good time.

But the main attraction is the Ecstasy of St. Theresa, one of Bernini’s most celebrated sculptures and located in a side chapel that Bernini himself designed. You kind of stand there and marvel at it, because what else can you do, really.

The thing about art is that it doesn’t really change once you’ve seen it. You can always find new things to appreciate, but the art itself is kind of static. So we drank our fill of it and then headed back to the apartment on the 65 and 170 Buses.

You see some interesting things as you go, if you pay attention.

The buses were very hot and very crowded – both kind of unusual, really – but they got us where we wanted to go and we were soon resting in air-conditioned comfort, doing laundry, grazing on the various snacks and foods we had in the kitchen, and generally relaxing. It had been a long day, and we didn’t even manage to get up the energy to find dinner – eventually we just decided that we were good where we were.

Oliver in particular was happy to have landed, but after a while Kim and I decided that what this day needed was more gelato. It was about 9:30 at night, and prime passegiata time. One of the nice traditions in Italy is the passegiata, where people just go out after dinner and walk around. It’s sociable in a way that Americans have really lost as we’ve retreated to our living rooms. At 9:30pm here in Our Little Town the streets are mostly empty, but in Italy they’re packed with families, couples, and people of all ages, and you have to love that.

We walked over to the gelato place on Via Marmorata, and then back to one of the neighborhood parks where we found a bench. Despite being nearly 10pm by this point it was still hot and the park was full of people. There was a group of young adults standing in a circle near us – 20-somethings perhaps – sharing conversations and prosecco. A makeshift soccer game with about half a dozen boys between 5 and 10 years old was happening over by the central statue. Sometimes the ball would find its way to the benches on the outer ring of the park, and someone would kick it back. The benches were full. People drifted in, passed through, moved on.

It was a nice place to enjoy a gelato on a warm night in Rome.