As the Romans do....

So we went on a walking tour of the down-townish area and got to see some really cool stuff. We first took the bus down to the Pantheon (not the Parthenon.) Ok, so not that i'm easily that star-chitecture struck but deeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaammmmmnnn. You see it on the cover of a bunch of art-history text books, but it was so different in person.

*You can skip this*

Now the Pantheon is important not only because it was an ancient temple to all the gods (rebuilt several times during the Roman empire, and then converted to a church by the Christians) but also because of it's structural dimentions. The diameter of the Pantheon dome was so wide that no other dome was as wide until the Huston Astrodome in the 1960's (which was demolished, so a point to the Romans). The only dome that came close was Bruneschelli's dome in Florence, about 1000 years after and just a few feet shorter. What else makes this dome so cool? I'll tell you, the section cut of the dome is a perfect circle, so the inverted top of the dome would just barely touch the floor.

http://www.faculty.sbc.edu/wassell/ArchMath/Unit4/thumbnails/PantheonSectionA.jpg

This building most famous feature is the Oculus, which is directly in the center of the top. It was originally designed to hit each statue at a different time of the year, on a specific time of day. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the placements of the gods, and the times of the year. (Dom or Melanie if you're reading this, help a sister out) Also there are several famous people burried here including Raphael (the artist not the turtle)and the first two kings of unified Italy. Raphael's epitaph was very beautiful: roughly translated it said

"This is Raphael whom in life Mother Nature feared defeat; And in whose death did fear to die"

But on an artistic scale the building breathes with the slow pulse of antiquity and an indescribable air of unreachable goals, but the desire to strive for them regarless of your victory. (neeeeeeeeeerd)

*you may return to your regularly scheduled livejournal*

Then we went to the Church of Santa Maria (directly behind the Pantheon and directly adjacent to the room in which Galileo was tried in the roman inquistion).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Galileo_facing_the_Roman_Inquisition.jpg

Santa Maria had some really beautiful mosaics which you could'nt entirely see because of how dark it was on the inside, but I suppose that whole phenomenon of jewels in the darkness was what they were going for. Then onto the Forum, just passing the Capitoline Museum (right next to where the mayor of Rome works, also you can get married there, we passed by a wedding party). We walked around the forum and saw all the ancient what-nots. I was especially blown away by the triumphal arches of Septimius Severus (Snape) and Titus. Titus' arch was a depiction of the sacking of Jerusalem, i'm not sure what Severus' depicted. (Again, Dom and/or Melanie) I also liked the temple of Romulus. We took a few pictures of the Colosseum, but they make you pay to get in and it was starting to rain so we walked back to the bus.

I took many pictures of this adventure, but my computer won't let me transfer them over, so i think i'm going to have to eventualy get my future photography professor to help me out so check back.

Tonight is a festival called "La notte bianca" or "the white night" which is when all the Museums are free and open all night, so we're heading back to the Capitoline Museum and the Colosseum also a couple other ones. We thought of doing the Vatican, but that's the kind of thing that's an all-day affair, plus I don't want to wake the pope up, he probably has a big day tomorrow, being sunday and all.

Classes start Monday and i'll let you know everything from there on!

:D