The Barberini Palace was amazing. I don't think they're any-other word for it. I got to see this:
http://www.dcm.ru/UserFiles/Image/2__O%20NAS/FILISOFIYA%20I%20MISSIYA/Judith%20Beheading%20Holofernes_CARAVAGGIO.jpg
I don't care how many Caravaggios i see, each time I'm always floored.
http://users.sch.gr/pchaloul/anagennisi/raphael_fornarina.jpg
One of the most imfamous stories in Art, Raphael was so much in love with this woman that he failed to finish his commissions. Eventually his patron found a way for them to be together, but they could not marry because of class reasons, also at the time he was considered to be a vagabond, and not the great painter of the renaissance. However they continued a love affair for most of his life. He called her Fornarina, woman of the fire, probably because of her baker background. Look at the ring finger, originally the wedding ring was painted over, a dreamed defered or a dream denied? we will never really know.
http://teachers.sduhsd.k12.ca.us/ltrupe/ART%20History%20Web/final/chap19BaroqueRococo/Cortona-Triumph%20of%20Barberini.jpg
the bridge between Baroque and rococo, i like to call it Barococo.
On Friday we had classes, I gave a report on Pluto: God of the Underworld
which was aptly titled. "Pluto: Not that bad a guy". He may be depressing and possesive and won his wife in an unseemly way, but he's not evil, he's not unfair to anyone and he always has a solid frame of mind. Plus, invisable hat.
On saturday we had all planned to go to Pompei, however Pompei denies her ancient presence to us in the form of a bus accident on the high-way.
There was a lot of dissapointment all around. But I have to say the AUR people were great, even though we could'nt go they tried to make the most of the day. They took us outlet shopping and bought us wine. The wine felt a little like the loaves and fishes, but was still really nice of them. The Outlet mall was strange. The whole set-up is designed to look like, what else, an italian town. Which leads me to think, don't they have real ones here, I mean is'nt Italy just silly with charming towns? Do we really need a fake one? But the prices could not be beat. On the outskirts of this particular outlet mall there was an elephant.
that's right, an elephant.
soak that up.
She was there with a circus in the confines of a rope tied around a trash-can. There was a man leaning on a cherry-picker that may or may not have been affiliated with the circus. There was no way of knowing, but I believe that he and the elephant had a mutual indifference, if not dislike. Sometimes life is just so wierd.
On sunday my cousins Lori and Sara came into town and we had a great time. They had already been to the big sites, The Forum, The Colloseum, Etc. So I showed them the interior of the Pantheon, The Trevi Fountain, The Piazza del Popolo, the Spanish Steps and the Capitoline Museum. We had lunch at the Piazza del Popolo and were mid-way through the meal when a british woman behind us said "SHUT UP YOU FAT F***" naturally afraid she was talking to us, we turned around. She was not, she was talking to the man she was eating with, he was speaking back to her in Italian. I was'nt entirely sure, but I think he was leaving her, either for another woman or another job. Watching this woman have a nervous breakdown in the middle of a trattoria was an experience that no bus-tour can bring, so I feel I did my job in showing Lori and Sara the true spirit of Rome.
Tomorrow is another day in a sun-drenched and beautiful city. It may rain, but probably for an hour then it will stop and be beautiful again.
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