Story from ABC News:
A 24-year-old Colombian man, perhaps unfamiliar with Rome’s streets, took a spin down the city’s famous 18th century Spanish steps at dawn on Thursday.
He turned left onto the famous stairs, one of the favorite tourist stops in the heart of Rome, from the street above and drove down the first seven steps, stopped, got out of his car looking surprised and immediately got back into it and drove down the next set of stairs to the first landing.
The driver then stepped out of the car again and, with the help of about 70 people who were enjoying the summer evening on the steps, pushed his Toyota Celica down the remaining stretch to the square below.
Four of the people who helped him push the car were taken in for questioning. A Breathalyzer test was administered twice, and both times the man was above the legal limit. The man has been charged with drunken driving and damaging a historic monument, and his car, driving license and car papers have been confiscated by the police.
City officials were summoned to check the state of the steps.
Massimo Cozzoli, a spokesman for the Rome city police, told ABC News, “You are allowed to go down the Spanish steps, but not in a car!”
There’s good reason to celebrate: juicy, delicious, fabulous figs are just starting to appear in Rome’s fresh food markets and grocery stores! This year we’ve vowed to eat more figs and to go beyond the standard (but oh-so-delicious) prosciutto and fig combination. We’ve begun the project with two recipes inspired by Ruth Rogers’ and Rose Gray’s River Cafe Cookbook Green.
Above, we’ve marinated sprinkled sliced figs with salt, pepper, and fresh thyme leaves before marinating them in olive oil, lemon juice, and balsamic vinegar. The result is an absolutely ambrosial dish likely to make you think you’re eating alongside the ancient immortals.
And below we’ve created another other-worldly delight by tossing figs with fresh basil leaves, buffalo mozzarella, salt, pepper, olive oil, and lemon juice!
John Kelly, acclaimed performance and visual artist from New York City, is in Rome where he’s spending his time making stunningly beautiful photographs and videos as part of a project called Inhabiting the Skin of Caravaggio.
What muse leads a contemporary artist to experiment with time travel in order that he might inhabit the skin of a seventeenth-century artist? For John Kelly, the Caravaggio project is one that exercises all the mind and body skills he’s developed over the course of a highly successful career. Trained as a dancer, a visual artist, and a singer, John is an innovative performer who spent the 1980s appearing in New York’s East Village Clubs where he was celebrated for bringing to life a fabulous drag queen named Dagmar Onassis (the purported love child of Marie Callas and Aristotle Onassis). Among other achievements, John has perfected a sort of “spiritual osmosis” that allows him to channel the musical talents of Joni Mitchell; he has transformed himself into the artist Egon Shiele; he has appeared on Broadway and starred in countless theater and dance performances; he has been awarded two Bessies, two Obies, the American Choreographer Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship - and that’s saying nothing about his life-long habit of painting self-portraits.
So why Caravaggio and why now? John first encountered Rome’s Baroque Bad Boy when he found himself face-to-face with a painting of the Supper at Emmaus. Utterly impressed by the theatrical elements of the painting, John immersed himself in the study of Caravaggio and has now begun to reinterpret the artist’s paintings in photographs and in video, substituting himself into the compositions in place of Caravaggio’s subjects, and using a few modern props and a simply-furnished studio to replicate Caravaggio’s dark and stagy settings.
The challenge for John - and one at which he is extraordinarily adept given his long stage career - is that of “finding” the poses assumed by Caravaggio’s models. Both process and product are recorded in his artwork. Each time John explores a painting he begins with a video-recorded, graceful, dance-like bodily search for a physical position that captures the drama of Caravaggio’s own composition. Still images taken from the videos are lush and haunting: they suggest a climatic end to the corporal hunt for pose and they record the very moment at which the artist fulfills his desire to inhabit Caravaggio’s skin.
While in Rome, John is resident at the American Academy. His autobiography is published by 2wice Arts Foundation and Aperture. For more information check his website.
As part of Louis Vuitton’s efforts to use conceptual architecture to make each of their stores a unique showcase for their stylish goods, a new Vuitton store has just appeared on Rome’s Via Condotti. The front entry a plasma screen staircase that plays technicolor tricks on the eye. Over the course of just a few minutes, the stairs can transform themselves into cascading water, trailing vines, or even a classic Louis Vuitton trunk. Crowds gather to watch the spectacle; tourists and passersby are spellbound.
The store’s design is based on a concept developed by architect Peter Marino.
In 1503, Giuliano della Rovere was elected as Pope. By choosing Julius II as his name, he paid homage to the early Christian Pope Julius I, but he also announced his intention to style himself as a new Julius Caesar.
Julius II’s pontificate lasted a decade and in that time he proved himself to be a most able and powerful man, quite like his ancient namesake. He fought wars against those who encroached upon the Papal States, insisting that Cardinals and the Sistine Chapel Choir accompany him to the battlefield. He tore down the 1200 year-old St. Peter’s Basilica and commissioned his architect Bramante to design a new church (it would take 120 years for it to be finished). He collected ancient statuary, hired Raphael to paint his private apartments, and insisted that Michelangelo fresco the Sistine Chapel ceiling. As if that were not enough, Julius II also showed himself to be an urban planner, for he funded the cutting of two long straight streets through Rome’s dense and twisted medieval urban fabric. He intended that these streets, the Via della Lungara and the Via Giulia, would help pilgrims reach the Vatican with ease and efficiency.
Along the Via Giulia (a street named, of course, for Julius himself) Julius and Bramante intended to construct the Palazzo del Tribunali, the first real office building to be constructed since antiquity, and a palace from which the city of Rome would have been administrated. The project was begun in 1508 with the placement of large rusticated travertine blocks, but difficulties soon forced its abandonment. Eventually a palace was built atop the travertine blocks but it didn’t follow Bramante’s design.
Now, that palace - with its Renaissance rusticated travertine blocks - has been transformed into a five-star hotel called the St. George. Designed by Lorenzo Bellini, the hotel’s lobby showcases the Renaissance basement constructed by Bramante (see photos above). There are 64 rooms, a charming terrace overlooking the elite Via Giulia, as well as a spa. The hotel restaurant, Sofa, is quickly becoming trendy, and the hotel also hosts a wine bar and a cigar bar for the pleasure of its guests.
