Try as you might....

 Try as you might, but you just can't escape this reality.

Why is it that when I'm in Rome, I feel heavy?  I feel elated, but somehow subpar.  The city is so busy, so full of people and noise.  The wonders are endless.  There is just too much to know and/or learn.  The questions you ask your wretched self are as follows:

• What is wrong with me that I cannot walk for 6 hours straight?
• Why couldn't I ever get through Mary Beard's SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome?
• What lack of self control makes me want to eat fried rice balls all day?

However....

When you come to Florence, somehow the game has changed.  There are just as many tourists, but there is more sky.  Everyone seems to be trying to look their best.  There is a rosy glow.  A desire to wrap strands of pearls in your hair.

• You feel that you could take up smoking and never get cancer.
• You feel that with just a few adjustments, you too could look like Catherine de'Medici.
• You know that you can spend endlessly and never end up in the workhouse.
• You feel justified for never having finished ANY of Mary Beard's books because they really are annoying. 

Just breathe in this Renaissance gem of a city. But not too deeply as there are some stinky bits.

Sunday doings

 When in Rome on a Sunday, I always attend the 9am mass in the Pauline Chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore.  This is one of my favorite churches in Rome.  It's actually a basilica, though.  It is one of 80 Marian churches in Rome.  The original church was built on this site (the Esquiline hill) in 432 by the order of Pope Sixtus III.  Later, during the Papacy of Pope Liberius, Mary appeared to him in a dream and demanded it be improved to Maggiore status, which it truly IS!

Full of exquisite early mosaics, gilt coffered ceilings, marble wonders, and now this:

  

The tomb of Pope Francis.  Understated, noble, soft, unassuming.  Franciscan restraint, but in marble.

You know, when Pope Francis announced his desire to be buried here, my first thought was, "oh boy, that is going to be a game changer for this church."  A church that was always a delight to go to because not many people were there.  NOW, LINES wrapped around the block to pass through security.

He was loved.  What else is there?

The priest at mass was so great.  A wonderful homily (in Italian) about how Pope Leo is spreading the message of peace, love, joy.  And he insisted we do the same.  He also mentioned that Pope Francis spent much time in this basilica, just walking and praying.  

So, Sunday in Italy actually is about walking.  After lunch, everyone goes for a passeggiata. A long and lazy stroll around.  Trying to escape the crowds, I decided to walk up to the Borghese gardens.  Well, the crowds were there, alas.  But so were the parrots.  Hundreds of them.  They must be mating or nesting?  They were glorious.

Sopra Minerva and Italian skincare

 Thinking about Pope Leo X yesterday made me want to visit his funerary monument at Santa Maria sopra Minerva.  This glorious church is near the Pantheon and somewhat easy to miss without the assistance of Google Maps.  Sopra Minerva is a stunning space and it is named so because it was built over the ruins of an ancient temple to the goddess Isis, erroneously attributed at the time to the goddess Minerva.  Very seldom in Rome to you get to enter a groovy, original Gothic (medieval) space because during the Baroque era, most churches were updated to that style.  But here it is.  Bask in the sumptuous Glory of vaulted ceilings and stary night skies:

Along with the tombs of plenty of famous people and artists, including Fra Angelico, are plenty of masterworks.  Michelangelo's Christ the Redeemer AND the tomb of St. Catherine of Siena:

Afterwards, much wandering around.  I decided to indulge in some Italian skincare products so I went to a shop dedicated to such.  Italian skincare tends to be botanical-based wonders.  This shop was so beautiful.  The shelves obviously organized according to skins types and needs.  Exquisite colored bottles of soft lilac, pinks, cornflower.  Ingredients like chamomile, lavender, rose oil, gillyflower.

I asked a woman for assistance.  She took a quick look at my face and neck and then led me over to a shelf where the bottle colors were a bit more dark, menacing and a bit foreboding.  She began to go over the merits of each product.  Now, my Italian isn't always accurate but I'm pretty sure I heard an ingredient list that included snake venom, bull's testicles, and the juice from a South American plant that has the ability to paralyze small rodents. 

Sold!!!  I bought it, bitches!  And I am very pleased with the results:

Ciao, ragazzi!

What a difference 500 years makes

 There is about a 500 year spread between these two Leo's.  

This portrait of Leo X is in the Barberini.  It follows very closely one done by Raphael, which currently hangs in the Uffizi.  It is by Giuliano Bugiardini and feature the Pope framed by Cardinals Giulio de'Medici and Innocenzo Cybo.  Leo was Pope from 1513-1521.  He was the son of Lorenzo de'Medici and was known for his patronage of the arts, his building schemes, and his use of indulgences to fill his ever-empty coffers.  He loved good food and parties, it seems.  He was a spendthrift and somehow didn't end up in Dante's 4th circle of Hell with the spendthrifts and misers. 

Here, as we all know, is Pope Leo XIV:

He is the first American Pope.  Known for his Chicago sass and all around fabulousness.  Committed to spreading messages of love and kindness, he is proving to be rather impressive.  At first I was concerned about having an American Pope.  But now I realize he is the perfect man for the perfect time.  Because he is American, there is no cultural distance or confusion when having to contend with our present government.  He understands exactly what kind of vile swine he is dealing with.  He knows the idiosyncratic and immoral behavior of the American wealthy class and all the stooges and sycophants who follow in their wake, hoping to be tossed some crumbs from the table of privilege. 

And speaking of the profane and grotesque, the Bernini exhibit included many of his sketches of fabulous mythological creatures.    Bernini is generally known for his religious and mythological subject matter, but I must say, I love his creepy creatures as well:

Sono arrivata!

 Goethe wrote upon arriving in Rome and taking up lodgings in a wee apartment on the Via Corso, "I am finally in this capital of the world!"  But of course he was living in those glorious days before tedious concepts like eurocentrism existed.  Sigh.

I have arrived in this glorious capital that is full of contradictions.  Splendid, yet dreadful, like any large city.  Full of miracles, yet full of noise, garbage, graffiti and endless tchotchkes, mostly made in China, some harmless, others a bit vulgar involving calendars featuring partially clothed, rather handsome priests.  Rome is a wonder!  So extraordinary.  Full of beauty, art, history and ....Italians, whom I just adore for their nonchalant fabulousness.

The trip here was seamless.  No problems at all, with the exception of being a little late out of Chicago.  Only 30 minutes!  But it was enough to get our plane bumped from a real 'port' in Fiumicino.  Thus, we had to disembark on the Tarmac of Shame, a lonely place well away from the terminal.  It is quite the experience to walk down the stairs from a Boeing 787 Dreamliner on to the asphalt and make your way cheerfully over to a bus that carts you and your fellow 300 passengers to the terminal for "processing."

The only hiccup, really.  I was at my hotel by 10:30, exhausted.  I dropped my bags and went out to amuse myself for 4 hours while my room was being readied.  

The Barberini is always a good place to spend a couple of hours, so I walked there and took another look at their permanent collection as well as the special exhibit of works by Bernini, the favored art of Pope Urban VIII (Matteo Barberini).  Glorious marble statuary, drawings, sketches.  

Then a walk to a little trattoria that I frequent.  Campari Spritz, a 'toast' and a salad.

From there, back to my hotel where I collapsed on the bed.....

One last suppli

 

Ciao Roma!  Ti voglio bene l'Italia!

Roma ~ quanto sei meraviglioso

 After mass, the long walk to San Giovani in Laterano.  This enormous basilica makes me quite emotional.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I had a touch of Stendhal Syndrome while looking up at the façade:

I had a lovely conversation with Sylvestro, the guy who has been working that souvenir shop forever... at least as long as I have been coming here.  He was giddy, telling me about the Jubilee year and that Pope Francis is going to open the enormous doors for the first time in a zillion years and when he does so, everyone's sins are going to be forgiven:

The church is so beautiful: mosaics, sculpture, paintings, inlaid marble..... the heads of Saint Peter and Saint Paul and items used in Christ's passion like part of the spear used to pierce his side.  

And then a walk through the cloister:

White marble, blue sky.  It's just Rome..................