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Jan

Photo Saturday: At the Trevi

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Photo Friday, Historic Sites, Photography and Architecture

Rome's Trevi Fountain, Photo by Susan Sanders

Yes, we’re a day behind, making this Photo Saturday instead of Photo Friday. And, given that it’s a brilliantly sunny winter day today, we thought we’d feature Susan Sander’s recent Trevi Fountain photos as they so majestically showcase the dramatic contrast between light and dark that characterizes Rome in the winter months.

Rome's Trevi Fountain, a photo by Susan Sanders

In the two shots above, the stage set that is the Trevi (read more about that here) is made ever more dramatic by the angling shadows thrown by surrounding buildings. Seen this way, one realizes just how small is the space in which the Trevi stands, for it was inserted into a densely populated neighborhood when it was created.

Below, tourists rest on the rough-hewn rocks of the Trevi’s base, taking in the last glimmers of sunlight on an unusually warm winter day.

To see more of Susan’s evocative photographs of Rome, visit her website: romewithaview.com

Rome's Trevi Fountain, a photo by Susan Sanders

Jan

Stairway to Anarchy

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Historic Sites and Everything Else

Balls Poured down Rome's Spanish Steps by Graziano Cecchini

Approximately 500,000 colored balls thundered down Rome’s Spanish Steps on Wednesday as self-styled artist and activist Graziano Cecchini pulled off his second eye-catching stunt in three months.

In October last year, Cecchinipoured red industrial dye into the waters of the Trevi fountain, creating a spectacle that angered local administrators, delighted tourists and was beamed around the world. Early on Wednesday, helped by three assistants, the 54-year-old ‘artist’ struck again.

Standing at the top of the famous staircase in front of the Trinita’ dei Monti church, he tipped over huge sacks of plastic balls which then went careening down the marble steps into the piazza below.

Balls Poured Down Rome's Spanish Steps by Graziano Cecchini

”This behavior is not acceptable. Trying to get publicity at the expense of the city’s image is not funny,” said city hall official Jean Leonard Touadi, who came to inspect the resulting scene.

As tourists rushed about picking up souvenir balls, police quickly cordoned off the area and called in the municipal refuse collectors. They arrived a little later with large nets to scoop up the colored spheres.

Meanwhile, Cecchini, a former militant with extreme right-wing groups, was explaining the philosophy behind his exploit to reporters.

”This is an artistic operation which documents through art the problem that we have in Italy. They’re always telling us lies, both the Left and the Right,” he said.

Colored Balls Dumped down the Spanish Steps by Grazio Cecchini

The significance appeared to be in the Italian word for balls (’palle‘) which can also mean untruths. There is also an Italian expression, meaning to be exasperated, which uses the same word.

Regardless of his artistic intention, Cecchini and his helpers were arrested for interrupting public services and taken off to the police station for questioning.

A police official said later that Cecchini would probably be fined for creating a mess in a public place. The official said the size of such fines generally depended on the scale of the mess.

Balls Poured Down Rome's Spanish Steps by Graziano Cecchini

Jean Leonard Touadi, the city hall official on the scene, complained that Cecchini had been encouraged by the media splash he made with his last escapade at the Trevi fountain.

”Of course, if someone does these things once and nothing happens, then they think they can do it again, especially if they get made into a hero”.

Cecchini won several plaudits after his first action last year and appeared on a number of TV shows. One of his admirers was Milan’s culture chief, prominent art critic Vittorio Sgarbi.

On Wednesday Sgarbi appeared full of appreciation for Cecchini’s latest action. He said it was ”consistent with the principles of contemporary art”. ”It occupies the landscape, without asking permission and also has a surprise effect. Anarchy is a typical feature of contemporary art,” Sgarbi said. (via ANSA)

Grazio Cecchini and the 500,000 colored balls he dumped down the Spanish Steps

Jan

The Can-onization of Michelangelo

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Historic Sites and Art & Design

Paco Rosic's Sistine Chapel

It took Michelangelo four years to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508-1512), but in Waterloo, Iowa, graffiti artist Paco Rosic managed to repeat the feat in only four months - using spray paint to depict a 1/2 scale version of the celebrated frescoes on the ceiling of a building his family has converted into a restaurant.

Paco was born in Sarajevo, but his family fled the Bosnian War in 1991, settling first in Germany where the he became a graffiti artist as a teenager. Six years later, the Rosen family immigrated to the United States and Paco decided to take his tagging skills to a new level.

Having first seen the Sistine Chapel in a book when he was six years old, Paco had always been obsessed with the work of Michelangelo. Thus, he decided to make it his mission to replicate the Renaissance masterpiece in his own medium of spray paint.

In full support of his dream, Paco’s parents used their life’s savings to purchase an 1870s building that was once an antique store. But, the shop’s ceiling wasn’t curved like the vault in the Sistine Chapel, so the family hired workers to tear it down and create a plaster ceiling that, at its highest point, is gently arched 14 feet above the floor. Paco ended up with 2,511 square feet of blank space.

Before starting the project, Paco traveled to Rome to study Michelangelo’s work up-close and in person. He spent four days sketching in the Sistine Chapel before heading back to Iowa to commence work.

For various reasons, Paco’s reproduction is not exactly like Michelangelo’s ceiling. He’s replicated the frescoes at a smaller scale and the space constraint has forced him to leave out some of the intricate details, for example, the eyes and cheekbones of the figures are made with broad lines of paint instead of tiny, delicate brushstrokes. As well, the medium of spray paint means that figures are even more vibrantly colored than they are in Michelangelo’s original.
Exactly how much spray paint does it take to complete such a project? Paco estimates that he used 2000 cans of Krylon paint at a cost of about $9000.

Paco Rosen's Sistine Chapel

Jan

Roman Holidays: Season Finale

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Roman Holidays, Historic Sites, Past & Present and On the Street

Creche Scene in Rome's Aurelian Walls

Today, the Feast of Epiphany, marks the end of the holiday season in Rome. Over the past weeks, we at the eCool compound have alternated between being naughty and nice, but through this long and celebratory season, we’ve done all we can to insure that things go well in the New Year. We’ve honored pagan gods and Christian ones; we’ve worn our red underwear and eaten our lentils; and we’ve admired traditional holiday decorations as well as those a bit more interesting and innovative.

Today, we offer you one final holiday scene. It’s not particularly beautiful (and perhaps it’s a bit confounding), but without a doubt it’s an innovative way of embellishing the city.

Look closely at the photo above and you’ll see that a creche or presepe has been installed in niches in the Aurelian Wall where it runs across the top of the Via Veneto. Built between 271-275 AD by the Emperor Aurelian, these massive walls once enclosed all seven hills of Rome and were intended to protect Rome from invading forces. The entire circuit of walls ran some 12.5 miles around the city - and a very large portion of those walls still stand, marking the limits of Rome’s historic center.

Why embellish these ancient walls with a Christian nativity scene? We’ve no idea. But we like it, like it, yes we do….

And, with this unusual scene, we close our Roman Holidays series (to see other entries, click on the Roman Holidays category in the menu to the left), for after the celebration of the Epiphany, creche scenes come down, holiday decorations are stripped away, and life in Rome resumes its normal pace.

We wish you well in the New Year and hope you’ll enhance 2008 by visiting this site often. We’ll be here, doing everything we can to keep you up to date on all things hip and happening in Rome.

Jan

Excavation of a Cryptoporticus on the Palatine Hill

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Archaeology and Historic Sites

Excavation of a Cryptoporticus on the Palatine Hill

This weekend, archaeologists in Rome have announced a new discovery amongst the complex jumble of ruins on the Palatine Hill. In the depths of this all-important hill, excavators say they they have found a cryptoporticus or underground passage that may have been the site at which the Roman Emperor Caligula was killed by the Praetorian Guard in January in 41 AD.

The Roman historian, Suetonius, recounts the murder:

On the ninth day before the Kalends of February, at about the seventh hour [Caligula] hesitated whether or not to get up for luncheon, since his stomach was still disordered from excess of food on the day before, but at length he came out at the persuasion of his friends. In the covered passage through which he had to pass, some boys of good birth, who had been summoned from Asia to appear on the stage, were rehearsing their parts, and he stopped to watch and encourage them….From this point there are two versions of the story: some say that as he was talking with the boys, Chaerea came up behind, and gave him a deep cut in the neck, having first cried, “Take that,” and that then the tribune Cornelius Sabinus, who was the other conspirator and faced Gaius, stabbed him in the breast [part of the ritual at the sacrifice was that the slayer raised his axe with the question “Shall I do it?” to which the priest replied “Take that”]. Others say that Sabinus, after getting rid of the crowd through centurions who were in the plot, asked for the watchword, as soldiers do; and that when Gaius gave him “Jupiter,” he cried “So be it,” [another formula at a sacrifice was “receive the fulfillment of your omen”, i.e., in naming Jupiter, the god of the thunderbolt and sudden death], and as Gaius looked around, he split his jawbone with a blow of his sword. As he lay upon the ground and with writhing limbs called out that he still lived, the others dispatched him with thirty wounds; for the general signal was ” Strike again.” Some even thrust their swords through his privates. At the beginning of the disturbance his bearers ran to his aid with their poles [with which they carried his litter], and presently the Germans of his body-guard, and they slew several of his assassins, as well as some inoffensive senators. (Quoted from the Ancient History Sourcebook)

This underground passageway - perhaps the scene of an imperial murder - connects the house of Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, with the Roman Forum. Currently, it lays some nine meters below the elaborate Gardens that the noble Farnese family created on the hilltop in the 16th century when they leveled the ruins of the House of Tiberius, thereby filling the tunnel with earth.

Excavation of the cryptoporticus began in September under the direction of archaeologist Maria Antonietta Tomei. She and her team have spent the past months removing tons of earth from the five-meter tall tunnel, as well as from lateral passageways.

Excavation of a Cryptoporticus on the Palatine Hill

In the process the excavation team has discovered a sizable fragment of a marble sculpture depicting a member of the imperial family as a Greek god (see above, left), as well as three marble wings, perhaps belonging to akroterial or rooftop sculptures that embellished the nearby Temple of Victory.

What can be learned from these excavations? Superintendent of Archaeology, Angelo Bottini suggests that the discovery demonstrates that the House of Augustus - parts of which will open to the public on 2 March 2008 - was much more extensive than has previously been suggested.

Excavation of a Cryptoporticus on the Palatine Hill

Dec

Roman Holidays: The Boards of the Manger

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Roman Holidays, Historic Sites and Myth/Legend/Religion

The Relic of the Holy Manger or Sacra Culla in Rome

Devout (and curious) visitors to Rome over the Christmas holidays will certainly want to make a stop at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore on the Esquiline Hill, as the massive 5th century church is home to Rome’s most treasured holiday relic - boards that comprised part of the manger in which the Baby Jesus was laid after his birth in Bethlehem.

Called the “cunambulum” or “sacra culla,” the relic comprises five long and narrow pieces of sycamore wood that are said to have been brought to Rome under the reign of Pope Theodore, between 640 and 649 AD. (The origins of the boards are uncertain. Some suggest that they were discovered in the Holy Land by Saint Helen, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, and thereby made the trip to Rome in the 4th century AD.)

Those truly devoted to the relic attend Midnight Mass at Christmas, an extraordinary ritual in which the relics and their elaborate reliquary (designed by Giuseppe Valadier) are unveiled. Usually, the relic is then exposed for veneration until Epiphany, 6 January, with a consecrated host placed in the crib to commemorate the laying of the body of the Christ Child in the Manger.

This year that won’t be happening. Italian newspapers are awash with the news that the Sacra Culla or Holy Manger is crumbling and needs immediate attention in order to be preserved. Thus, this year, the boards will not be exposed for veneration over the holidays, but rather will remain in their traditional place in order to prevent them from suffering damage that might be incurred if they were to be subject to movement or sudden changes in temperature or light. And, after the holidays a scientific committee will be appointed to oversee the work necessary to insure their preservation.

Because the Sacra Culla could not be part of the usual Christmas festivities at Santa Maria Maggiore, this year another precious relic kept at the church and rarely exposed to the public was celebrated. The panniculum, a 15 x 20 cm piece of cloth said to have been part of the clothes in which the Virgin Mary wrapped the Baby Jesus after his birth, was honored in the midnight mass instead.

Photos: The reliquary of the Sacra Culla by Giuseppe Valadier (above and below, left) and the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore (below, right) in which these relics are kept.

To read about the miraculous snow that fell on the site of Santa Maria Maggiore in the 4th century AD, click here.
The Relic of the Holy Manger or Sacra Culla in Rome

Dec

Roman Holidays: Merry Christmas!

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Roman Holidays and Historic Sites

Christmas Tree at the Colosseum

Merry Christmas from Rome! More Roman Holidays updates coming up in the next week - so stay tuned! In the meantime, happy holidays to all!

Dec

Good News from the Vatican

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Museums and Historic Sites

Sistine Chapel Ceiling

Both visitors and residents of Rome alike usually find it quite a hassle to visit the Vatican Museums. Traditionally, the hours have been short and the crowds massive. But, starting in 2008, the Vatican is imposing new hours with hopes of remedying the situation.

From 2 January 2008, the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel will be open from 8:30am to 6:00pm, with the last entrance at 4:00pm. The entrance fee will also go up this year - from 13 euro to 14 euro.

For a complete schedule of Vatican Museum & Sistine Chapel hours for 2008, visit the Vatican Museums website.

Dec

Photo Friday: The Golden Light of Rome

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Photo Friday, Historic Sites and Photography

The Cloaca Maxima. Photograph by Susan Sanders

We take a break from our month-long series of posts on the Roman Holidays to enjoy the golden light of Rome. Each fall, when days grow shorter and the temperatures start to dip, Rome’s light changes drastically as the harsh flat light of summer gives way to golden luminescence.

Rome is famous for that soft golden light and the photograph above makes it easy to see why. Taken earlier this week on a late afternoon, the photo by Susan Sanders showcases depicts the Tiber River, the Ponte Palatino, and the huge arched vault that frames the gaping mouth of the city’s oldest drain, the Cloaca Maxima.

For enjoy more of Susan’s photographs of Rome, visit her Rome With a View blog.

Nov

Photo Friday for Text & the City: A City of Words

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Categories: Historic Sites and Text & the City

Jenny Holzer in Rome

Photographer Susan Sanders has jumped on board our week-long celebration of the written word in Rome. Thus, on this Photo Friday, she offers us a vision of Rome as a city of words. The photograph above was taken in Summer 2007 when artist Jenny Holzer staged a series of textual projections in the Eternal City. Here, words slide across the Tiber River before creeping up its embankments and scaling the heights of Castel Sant’Angelo.

What if words were visible and tactile objects? What if we could see and feel all that is been spoken and expressed in a dense and crowded city like Rome? These questions remind us of a passage from Jeanette Winterson’s book, Sexing the Cherry, in which she describes a city in which words are more than sound-filled breaths of air that escape from our mouths:

The streets are badly lit and the distance from one side to the other no more than the span of my arms. The stone crumbles, the cobbles are uneven. The people who throng the streets shout at each other, their voices rising from the mass of heads and floating upwards towards the church spires and the great copper bells that clang the end of the day. Their words, rising up, form a thick cloud over the city, which every so often must be thoroughly cleansed of too much language. Men and women in balloons fly up from the main square and, armed with mops and scrubbing brushes, do battle with the canopy of words trapped under the sun.

The words resist erasure. The oldest and most stubborn form a thick crush of chattering rage. Cleaners have been bitten by words still quarrelling, and in one famous lawsuit a woman whose mop had been eaten and whose hand was badly mauled by a vicious row sought to bring the original antagonists to court. The men responsible made their defense on the grounds that the words no longer belonged to them. Years had passed. Was it their fault if the city had failed to deal with its overheads? The judge ruled against the plantiff but ordered the city to buy her a new mop. She was not satisfied, and was later found lining the chimneys of her accused with vitriol.

I once accompanied a cleaner in a balloon and was amazed to hear, as the sights of the city dropped away, a faint murmuring like bees. The murmuring grew louder and louder till it sounded like the clamoring of birds, then like the deafening noise of schoolchildren let out for the holidays. She pointed with her mop and I saw a vibrating mass of many colors appear before us. We could no longer speak to each other and be heard.

She aimed her mop at a particularly noisy bright red band of words who, from what I could make out, had escaped from a group of young men on their way home from a brothel. I could see from the set of my companion’s mouth that she found this particular job distasteful, but she persevered, and in a few moments all that remained was the fading pink of a few ghostly swear-words.

For more images of language made immortal by Jenny Holzer’s Rome projections, click here, here, here and here. And visit Susan Sanders’ photo blog to see more of her compelling views of Rome.