Rome, Day 2 – 8/05

We were out early for our walking tour. Our first stop was Piazza Navona. Even though we had visited it the day before, Jason wanted to point out a couple of things; the Bernini sculpture’s of the Four Rivers in the center and the fountain of the Moor at the southern end. The Four Rivers fountain was not accessible due to restoration work so I got a picture from Wikipedia to post here. I’ve also included a photo of the Moor fountain.

Next up on our tour was visiting a couple churches. On our way, we passed by the Pantheon and we went in again. I took a picture of the carriages that you can rent for an old fashioned ride around Rome with the Pantheon behind it. Just behind and above the carriage is the entrance. The think I found most interesting was the hole in ceiling so here are couple of it. The floor was slanted to drain rain water that came through that open hole.

After this we visited a church where Jason new the priest and Jason had painted a painting of the inside of the church. I don’t remember the name of it but it was beautiful inside. It had a ceiling that was painted in perfect perspective. It also had the highly ornate interior consistent with most of the churches in Rome.

The next church we visited was the Church of San Luigi which had two Caravaggio paintings: The Calling of Saint Matthew and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew. The lighting in the little chapel inside the church was run by a coin operated switch. You put a one Euro coin in and the light stayed on for several minutes; then it went out again. It was a good way to bring in some extra change for the church. After this we headed to the Piazzo del Popolo (Square of the People) to see another church that had a Caravaggio painting. By the time we finished it was around noon, so everyone went to get lunch then we were to meet Jason at the Villa Borghese Museum for our 3:00 scheduled tour there. I’ve included a shot of one of the churches in the Piazzo del Popolo.

We all met at the Villa Borghese to see the collection of artwork. The Cardinal Scipione Borghese was a Renaissance era prelate, art collector and a member of the Borghese family. The cardinal used this as a party villa and to hold his art collection. It had some fabulous Bernini sculptures and several works by Caravaggio. It was my favorite of all art places we visited in Rome. I bought a book of Caravaggio’s work at the museum book store. It was written in Italian, but that was okay because I was interested mainly in the pictures. Speaking of pictures, here’s a photo of Serena, Theo, Craig, Sean and Judy with the hat, waiting for everyone to finish the tour.

Once everyone got back together, we headed down the road, past the zoo, to the National Museum of Modern art. They really do have modern art in Italy! It was a nice change after seeing so much religious art. I’ve included a picture of Sam walking up to it. Once we finished there, five of us decided to take a cab back to the hotel. We were really tired after a whole day of literally walking around Rome. After cleaning up Sam, Jen, Robert and I went out for a nice dinner and we celebrated Jen’s birthday. For dessert, we stopped at a nearby gelato shop. It was a perfect end to a very busy day.