Vatican and Bernini

Raphael Rooms:
Room of Constantine 1524 ca (for Pope Leo X)
Room of Heliodorus (aka throne room of the Pope) 1511-13 (For Pope Julius II and Leo X)
Room of the Segnatura (aka the Library) 1508-11 (for pope Julius II)
Room of the Fire in the Borgo 1514-17 (For pope Leo X)


Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Ceiling 1508-12 (for pope Julius II)
Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Last Judgment 1536-41 (for Pope Paul III)

Bernini's Statues:
Bernini born in 1598 died in 1680.

Pluto and Proserpina - 1621-22
Apollo and Daphne - 1622-25
David – 1623-4

Ancient Rome Timeline

ROME FOUNDED IN 753 BY ROMULUS

PANTHEON 27-25 BC AND 118-128AD

THEATER OF MARCELLUS 50caBC to 13-11BC

PORTICO OF OCTAVIA 22caBC

BASILICA AEMILIA 179BC

CURIA 45-44BC AND THEN 29BC

ARCH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS 203AD

LAPIS NIGER 6TH CENTURY BC

ROSTRA (BOW-RAMS)

TEMPLE OF SATURN 498 BC – REBUILT IN 42 BC AND 283 AD

TEMPLE OF VESPASIAN AND TITUS 1ST CENTURY AD

TEMPLE OF CONCORDIA 367 BC

TABULARIM 80 BC

BASILICA IULIA 54 BC

TEMPLE OF CASTOR AND POLLUX 484 BC REBUILT IN 6TH CENTURY AD

TEMPLE OF DIVUS IULIUS 44-45 BC

TEMPLE OF VESTA 191 AD

HOUSE OF THE VESTALS

REGIA 7TH CENTURY BC

TEMPLE OF ANTONINUS AND FAUSTINA

TEMPLE OF ROMULUS 306-312 AD

BASILICA OF MAXENTIUM 306-312 AD

ARCH OF TITUS 71 AD

TEMPLE OF VENUS AND ROMA 135 AD

Thanks

Well, we are almost all back at Chapman and I would like to just take a moment to thank Eric Chimenti for keeping up this wonderful blog and thus keeping all parents informed on all that was going on during our visit.
I would also like to thank all the students for being such wonderful troopers and following me everywhere even when it meant walking for miles... :)
It has been an amazing experience and i sincerely hope that you will all remember it for the rest of your lives (even those nights that, according to your facebook pages, were a blur to you).

un abbraccio

january 24-26 story and pictures

Sleeping, souvenir shopping, laundry, Internet, packing, final day exploring were all activities that filled the last full day of our trip. It also rained hard this afternoon, but the rainbow after was beautiful. Four members of the class have already left for Paris. The rest of us had our final dinner together tonight. It was a delicious traditional Italian meal with homemade ravioli – stuffed with Ricotta cheese, homemade pasta – with Italian bacon, mixed cooked vegetable platter with Italian artichokes, a fresh green salad, and Tiramisu. Liliana brought everyone a rose shaped chocolate, and some fresh wild strawberries to try. It began to rain again as we finished dinner and most of us went back to the hotel in a downpour.

The majority of us left the hotel at 7:45 am for the airport to begin the trek home. We were supposed to go through terminal 5. This is not the terminal the Roman cab drivers are familiar with for Americans. The cab rides were supposed to be 40 Euros, some were some weren’t. Some students got dropped at terminal C and had to take a shuttle to terminal 5. Some of the groups were charged more than 40 Euros. Some of the cabbies argued with their passengers over the drop off point and the charge. The flight from Rome to Philadelphia was north-west and took us over the Italian Alps and what may have been Greenland, Newfoundland, and probably Canada. The first leg was 10 hours, the second leg was 6 due to stronger than normal prevailing westerly winds. Everyone was anxious to be home and surrounded by the familiar, Mexican food was high on the priority list.

January 23 story and pictures

Today was the final day of instruction. The students are split into two groups since the Borghese Museum will not allow tours over 15 to go thru at one time. The first fifteen leave at 9:30ish for the hour trek by foot, No. 8 tram, foot, No. 63 bus, and then foot again. The appointment is from 11 to 1 pm. The second group met Professor Chimenti at the cat sanctuary at 2:00 pm so they can be taken to meet up with Dr. Leopardi in the beautiful park grounds that surround the Borghese. On the way we pass under what was a Roman aqueduct, that then became an exterior wall of Medieval Rome, that is now a stunning piece of architecture for us to walk thru as we head into the park on our way to the museum. There are no pictures allowed inside. This museum goes so far as to make all visitors check their bags and cameras at the door, not even the Vatican was that strict. Please look up the museum or works by Caravaggio, Raphael, Bernini, Titian, and Botticelli on line to see what we saw. At the end of this museum visit the students turn in their notebooks to be checked, they will be returned tomorrow so that they can begin working on their final.

January 22 story and pictures

The sun is streaming in through those hotel windows this morning. It is a welcome sight after many overcast and rainy days. Today we walked to a few more historic sites to help bracket the time period we are interested in. We started in Piazza Novona and looked at the spectacular Four Rivers Fountain by Bernini. We then went and looked at some stunning paintings by Caravaggio, followed the Pantheon, it is truly an amazing building. It is very easy to see why it inspired so many church domes of the 15th and 16th century. Raphael's tomb is located within it too. We then walked to the Trevi Fountain, where everyone was taking group and subgroup pictures. I only managed to get one group photo on my camera; if the students send me theirs I’ll upload them too. We ended at the Spanish Steps and stopped at about 1pm with the rest of the day to ourselves. Some sought out free wi-fi so that they could upload yesterday’s update and then celebrated with Gelato. Yesterday was a long day and tomorrow promises to be also, so it was nice to have a break between, especially on such a beautiful day.

january 21 story and pictures

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Leopardi for doing an outstanding job setting up this course, flexing the schedule (sometimes daily and hourly) to accommodate the vagaries of weather, the visit sites, and the students. It all seems so seamless, but some of us can see and appreciate the mounds of logistic and academic preparation that has occurred.

Today some of us left for a large open-air local market at 9:45 just up the street from our hotel, these are becoming more rare in Rome. This is where the local neighborhood shops for everything from groceries to clothes. At 11 am the class gathered in the hotel lobby, walked to the tram, took the tram, and then the bus to just outside Vatican City. We then walked briskly in the rain out of Italy and into the Papal State to enter the Vatican Museum. There we begin to see how the ancient Greek and Roman art, architecture, and ideals were co-opted in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. As we went through a very small portion of the collection heading toward Saint Peter’s Cathedral we were seeing what had led up to some of the most famous pieces by Raphael and Michelangelo. Dr. Leopardi did a magnificent job weaving all the art, political, and religious threads from the ancient past and fifteenth and sixteenth century together so that as we entered the Pope’s Library with it’s Raphael’s and the Sistine Chapel with its Michelangelo’s the course tapestry became more and more complete. All of this was accomplished in rooms full of competing tour guides, and the ebb and flow of masses of humanity. My words cannot describe what it is like to walk into room after room of truly legendary art. To round a corner and suddenly be confronted by Raphael’s School of Athens filling the wall or to emerge into the Sistine Chapel as it’s grandeur and size surrounds and engulfs you are indescribable. There are no pictures allowed in the latter and the former would not have justice done to it by amateur photographers. Please look them up on line if you are not familiar with them. We finish the day in St. Peter’s Cathedral concentrating on Michelangelo’s Pieta, and Bernini’s many artistic contributions.