3/3/14 - When in ROME

Oh my goodness this place is amazing!  Seriously I am really starting to like it here.  Already getting ideas for future trips… Ok.  So the day started off with a visit to Santa Maria Maggiore.  Pope Liberius had the church built after he had a dream where he saw St. Mary in the snow, and then the next day it snowed only in this one spot so they constructed the church here.  As all the churches have been, this one was beautiful.  Our particular interest in this church was the mosaic at the front of the sanctuary.  It included an image of Mary and Jesus sitting together, which is similar to the relationships displayed between a female goddess and her consort in some of the ancient Roman religions.  Below this image is the Assumption of Mary.  It was believed that she couldn’t die, so instead she was just said to be sleeping and her body “assumed” into heaven.  The other favorite is the Annunciation of Mary.  In Luke Mary hears the word of God from the angel Gabriel, and therefore Jesus is conceived through her ear, which is depicted quite clearly in this mosaic.

Santa maria Maggorie

The entire mosaic

Mary and Jesus

Assumption of Mary

Annunciation of Mary

The room was absolutely beautiful, and the art continued
all the way up to the dome ceiling!

The all-seeing eye of God.  A blend of imagery from the
Egyptian gods Aten and Horus.

This church also houses relics of the ‘true cross’ and the manger in which Jesus lay (though it has been said that if you put all the remaining pieces of the ‘true cross’ together you could build the mast of a ship).  Along the sides of this church were dozens of confession booths, each with a sign that indicated which languages the priest spoke, and little light that would tell if the priest was “in.”  I thought that was really cool!

Relics of the manger
Lord God, we praise you for creating man,
and still more for restoring him in Christ.
Your Son shared our weakness: may we share his glory.
Amen.

The second church we visited was San Pietro in Vincoli, which claimed to have the chains of Peter and Paul.  These chains were miraculously bonded together into one chain.  This church is home to Michelangelo’s Moses sculpture.  In this sculpture Moses has horns because of a mistranslation of the Bible when he returns from Mount Sinai.  Now we recognize the text to mean his face was shining, but during the Renaissance the former translation was used.  It is a beautiful piece of work!

Chains of Peter and Paul

Michelangelo's Moses

The third church of the morning was the Basilica of San Clemente.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures in this one.  One thing I didn’t realize about Rome was how layered the city is.  As new people moved in they just kept building right on top of buildings.  The Basilica of San Clemente sits on top of an earlier church, which in turn is situated on an even earlier temple of Mithra.  After entering the church, we walked down a staircase and through tunnels that had been excavated.  On the lowermost level, beside the temple of Mithra, there was a Roman house with a spring and water running through the corner of it.  This is quite amazing considering it was inhabited close to 2000 years ago.  The oldest portion that we visited dates to about 200 CE, with the original brickwork still intact.  Wow!

The Basilica of San Clemente

After a morning of churches we stopped for a Panini by the Coliseum (casual).  It was a beautiful day!  I took a nap in the grass.  After being so cold all day yesterday I was a little over dressed today.  The sun was so warm, I cannot imagine coming here in August (well, I can imagine that it would be painfully hot at least).  I also had braided bread stuffed with spinach and cheese for lunch and it was delicious! (That is going to be a very common word throughout these posts).

Panini by the Coliseum

After lunch we had a private tour of the Coliseum by someone (I want to say his name was John) who studies architecture in Rome, and we got to go inside!  It was crazy, and so amazing, and giant, and beautiful in a very different way than the churches.  Obviously much blood shed occurred here, but also a huge part of history.  Upon entering I decided that I was going to see the chariot races.  Others in the group were heading in for the naval battles and lion fights.  Others just thought I was crazy for asking…

Our tour guide

A drawing of the ancient building

The Coliseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, was built between 70 and 80 CE.  It is estimated that it could hold between 50,000 and 80,000 spectators.  Games were held on holidays, which occurred about every 3 days (you can imagine how that fared for the economy…) and citizens were required to attend.  The games included animal and gladiator fights, as well as chariot races, and naval battles when the arena was flooded.  There were a handful of “career” gladiators where were the crowd favorites, and generally set up to win the matches.  One time a Christian jumped in between two gladiators to stop the fights, and while he didn’t make it his message did, and from then on human to human fighting ceased.  After the period used for the games, the Coliseum was used for all sorts of things, including squatters who had no other home.

WOW!!!

Even the Coliseum has been turned into a "church"

Continuing from the Coliseum we stopped by the Arc of Constantine and the Roman Forum.  We learned all about the temples and way of Roman life in this era, but by then my brain was so packed with new information from the morning/early afternoon that I don’t really remember much of it…  Here is what I do have.  Roman life was centered around courtyards, so people in higher places of power were given the vantage point to see into as many surrounding courtyards as possible, and the original trenches and foundations of the huts of Remus and Romulus were found here.  The Arcs were built when armies were successful in war, and the returning soldiers would pass through the arcs in celebration of victory.  The sculpture work on the inside of the arcs depicts these scenes.

The Arc of Constantine

Remains of part of the aqueduct system.  So cool!

An ancient courtyard

A view of the forum

Trenches and huts from Romulus and Remus

Map of the Forum

Another victory arc

Inside of the arc depicting the armies carrying the spoils of war

The Forum

Ruins of an ancient temple

You can literally see three levels of Rome in this building

Think about this for awhile...

One theme of this trip has been recycling.  Nearly all of the bronze, marble, and other valuables have been stripped and repurposed to numerous new buildings.  As the Christian unearthed ancient temples, they quickly acquired all material that proved useful in decorating their own ornate churches.  After a very busy day we stopped for some gelato as a pre dinner snack.  After dinner we continued the dissert trend with cheesecake and tiramisu.  Yummm!!!  Have I mentioned that I like this place?

Gelato!

Aaaaaand second dessert!