Rome, 2018 & 2019

Rome is too much to capture in a simple blog. That would be a full-time job. Or maybe I was just moving too fast and seeing too much. My last post was  a month ago, and friends are beginning to text and write to me to see if I’m still alive. Well, I am, back in Atlanta and trying to do a wrap on a wonderful two months in Rome.

You can’t be in this city during Easter, or just about any time, without feeling the presence of Catholicism. There’s St. Peter’s sitting across the river with the Pope who appears periodically to bless throngs and run around the piazza in his convertible. Nuns and priests are everywhere, and there is a grand church on just about every corner full of statues and painting of saints and often parts of their bodies ensconced in  reliquaries. Clutches of  young seminarians stroll up and down Via Giulia and a group of them gathers i for lunch every day at the little cantina next door. Their chatter is just like that of any other group of youngsters starting out on their lives, but instead of chattering about what the market’s doing or who bought what kind of car, the conversations are about where they hope to make their parish. Today it was a competition between villages in Slovenia and towns in Spain with a break for saying grace over the same spaghetti carbonara that I was enjoying, gracelessly, at the next table .

What this amounts to is that it’s hard to be a heathen in Rome. Too much evidence surrounds to contradict. The week leading up to Easter was rainy and cold, and this is what St. Peter’s looked like on Saturday as the city awaited the Resurrection.

The weather forecast was gloomy, for chilly temperatures and rain for Easter Sunday. But here’s what Easter Sunday looked like.

This pope is a real charmer, riding around the piazza and up and down the street to wave to the crowds, but check out the guy in the beret in the foreground. No one does uniforms like the Italians, but that’s another story that would take pages.  Apologies for the photo quality. I copied this from Don’s files. He’s taller and got a better shot.

I can’t begin to fill in the blanks for the past month, so I’m inserting photos from the 1,852 that I took of stuff that especially caught my eye .

 

Who knew it was possible to achieve such detail with mosaics.

Here are some of the astounding things medieval and baroque architects did with marble:

These floors were made around the same time as the mosaics, 12th century.

My friend Don came for a visit. After we were Pope-blessed,  we did most of the usual tourist stuff, which mostly involves eating.

We checked out the action in Trastevere. The fountain in the piazza has been in its current spot in one form or another since the 4th century. It was remodeled in the 12the century, and then Bernini made some refinements in the 16th. Someone came along in the 17th and turned the seashells around to face inward. Somewhere along that long line, wide steps were added for seating.

There is always music going on in the piazza. Usually it’s an Argentine group playing tangoes, but that day it was rock and roll.

The following Wednesday we headed to Greece to visit my family and to celebrate Greek Easter. I’ve never in my life been in the middle of so much religion. My cousin Sofia is a retired math teacher and school principal who has taken up herbalism.  She makes lotions and creams and oils using local herbs and flowers and knows all about the medicinal properties of the plants in the nearby mountains. She was our guide for a Holy Thursday tour of mountains and monasteries.

Sofia was the first family member I met back in 1992 when I reunited my New Orleans family with my grandfather’s Greek family after a lapse in communication of nearly 80 years . She was my interpreter for our first evening together, which was cut short by an earthquake (the old gods rolled over in their sleep). My Uncle George, whom I met the next day, pronounced me the Christopher Columbus of the Magafas family.

The weather was overcast and windy, and spring had come to the mountains. The variety of tiny wildflowers was immense, and Sofia seemed to know what every plant was good for.

 

Sofia said that red poppies are good for tea and salves but were not narcotic. However, my cousin Dimitrius, who is a master farmer, said their tea makes a nice sedative.

The mountains of the Peloponnese are breathtaking, beautiful, huge.

 

Sofia said she’d like to show us a beautiful nunnery, but she said the drive up was too precipitous.  That was all Don needed to hear, so of course we headed up to the top. Sofia closed her eyes for most of the way. It did turn out to be one of the worst roads I’d traveled, but the drive was worth it.

Here are some frescoes of hero saints from inside the church, very different from the passive way Roman saints are depicted. They’re depicted looking out at you instead of heavenward. Interesting.

The views from the top of the mountain were breathtaking. We could see the Gulf of Corinth, and those are the mountains of ancient Delphi barely visible in the mist on the far side of the Gulf.

Sofia explained that lilacs are called Easter flowers (I won’t attempt to type the Greek name). Lilacs bloom at Easter in Greece regardless of when Easter falls. I have a great video of her explaining the legend, but I can’t figure how to post it (too large a file).

In the Greek church, as I understand it, Christ dies on Holy Thursday, and is buried on Good Friday. Each church has a symbolic bier that the faithful visit, and church bells toll all day. Then at night, everyone in town gathers for a candlelight procession in which the bier is carried through the streets. I have a video of the procession that is too long to post, and I have no idea how to edit a video. Thus, this blurry, accidental snapshot will have to do. Just imagine everyone in town following a procession carrying candles led by a band playing doleful music while the church bell tolls and the priest chants.

On Saturday I helped (or hindered) the cooks while cousin Vivi chopped liver for the traditional Easter dish, Magiritsa, and cousin Tasia made a sort of Greek lamb paté.  I don’t know how to spell it, but it sounds like cocoretsis. Vivi is famous for being able to chop everything in finer pieces than anyone else in the family.

This is what it all looked like when she was done. (I chopped those green onions in the green bowl, I did.)

I won’t say what goes into this dish (you don’t want to know). It’s a sort of lamb paté that is absolutely delicious.

All this translated into an Easter Sunday feast that involved a whole lamb roasted in a sealed brick oven and expertly handled by Vivi and Dimitrius, the master cook.

I was going to post a photo of the dinner table, but although I took about 15 shots, each showed lovely people with faces contorted with chewing so that they would have killed me if I’d posted one. This is what the fabulous dinner looked like.

I have another two weeks to catch up on, but I’m going to close this post for now lest I never finish it. Apologies for typos. More to come (of both).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s almost the end of Holy Week, and Rome is hopping. Seems like half the world has come here for Easter, and the streets are jammed. When I was a kid, Good Friday was a somber day when we weren’t allowed to play outside or make noise, and we went to church. Here in Rome it’s like any other holiday, busy, noisy, festive. I haven’t been across the river to St. Peter’s, so I can’t vouch for the mood over there, but on my side of the river, it’s lively.

Today I decided to go to Via Margutta, a short street near Piazza del Popolo that has a special Roman history. Via Margutta is where Tom Ripley liked to have lunch in what Patricia Highsmith described as student restaurants when he moved to Rome after beating Dickie Greenleaf to death and assuming his identity. Number 55  is where Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) lived in Roman Holiday and where Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) crashed after running away from home. Most famously, number 110 was the last home of Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina where their walls were covered in built-in bookcases with over 5,000 books and where one section of the house was reserved for smokers (Giulietta’s) and the other for nonsmokers (Federico’s).

This was not a photogenic day. Rain was forecast but held off until tonight, and the sky was dull gray without even the drama of storm clouds — exactly what Good Friday weather should be like, somber, moody. On the other hand, since half the world has come to Rome for Holy Week and Easter, the streets were mobbed with tour groups and families carrying maps and Rick Steves guidebooks and staring at street signs. One thing about narrow, medieval streets is that when someone stops to look at a street sign, the way is effectively blocked until he or she is done. Also, with few exceptions the streets are for everyone —  cars, bicycles, scooters, pedestrians. Sometimes even pinned to a wall (when a doorway isn’t quickly available), the tires of that truck pass within inches of my toes.

Google Maps did its job and got me through it all. On the way, I rediscovered a church I’d seen on my first visit to Rome that looked to be Early Christian. I’d wanted to go inside, but until today I was unable to find it. I didn’t know its name. It’s San Lorenzo in Lucina, and it is an Early Christian church, or was until, like almost every other church in Rome, it was attacked by baroque architects and renovated. That’s not all bad. The Fonseca family had the grace to hire the sculptor of the day to update its chapel, so I found yet another one of those Berninis that are tucked away in Roman churches. Guess which one is the Bernini.

 

After pushing through crowds and dodging cars (it’s a miracle pedestrians survive), I found Via Margutta. In spite of being close to Piazza del Popolo and the Spanish Steps, it was nearly empty apart from a few people having lunch in the only restaurant I saw on the entire street. I understand Via Margutta is called the street of the artists, but obviously not bohemian, struggling types. It’s very upscale — no pizzerias or tabachi or souvenir shops.

Number 55 appears to be a law office or ad agency now.

But this adjacent entrance looks more like where Joe might have lived.

I haven’t learned yet how to balance exposure with my new iPhone camera, so you’ll have to take my word for it that this is Via Margutta 110.

This one’s better.

This notice is from 174-something. I see these markers all over Rome and read recently that they are posted notices from neighborhood and city officials related to the business of that particular street. I tried to translate this one, and as nearly as I can tell, it says that any or all people who behave badly on the street (make “mondezzaro,” whatever that is) are subject to a fine of 10 scudi per offense or corporal punishment, by order of the president of the street.

I’d love to know what making mondezzaro is. Please share if you know.

I must have been channeling Audrey, because as Google Maps guided me out of Via Margutta and toward Piazza del Popolo, here’s what I encountered. But I don’t think they were a team as early as Roman Holiday.

More later. It’s Holy Saturday now, and I’m off to check out the action at the Vatican.

 

I haven’t said enough about my time with Carol and Arielle. They were the best visitors ever. We ate our way through the city, and shopped like fools, mad-shopping (including for Pope socks), which is to say we stopped in any store that looked interesting and bought stuff. We also hunted down landmarks that I hadn’t been able to find using my street map. Arielle had aced using Google Maps as a guide, so all she needed to do was plug in a name, and we found the place. We walked miles every day. Our record was the day of the Borghese gallery when we made it to 9.5 miles.

One favorite respite from our marathon-long walks was when we got to sit while Arielle tried out clothes.

Please note the glamorous shoes on Carol’s feet. These are my last-resort walking shoes on loan,. They are a size to big for me and two sizes too big for Carol. Roman cobblestones banished all consideration of chic. We called them her duck shoes.

I discovered much more about Rome during their visit than Pope blessings. It was great to see the city through fresh eyes. For one thing, Arielle knows more about different pasta dishes than most food writers.  Here are a couple of dishes we tried.

Pasta with black truffles

Rigatoni amatriciana

I don’t have a photo of two of Rome’s most traditional pasta dishes, which Arielle introduced me to, tonnarelli caccio é pepe and rigatoni alla gricia. We ate so much of these that I guess we began to take them for granted (what!). I’ll take pictures of those later and post them.

Although we spent a lot of time eating, we noticed other things. Arielle spotted an example of Rome’s mysterious graffiti .  .  .

.  .  .  and discovered Lucifero, a cozy little restaurant near the house where we drank lots of prosecco and ate strange dishes that tasted wonderful.

These appetizers were served with an assortment of honeys infused with fruit. My favorite was the one infused with black truffles. Tried to buy some, but it was homemade. (Carol knows a guy in north Georgia with a trained truffle dog, so the food future is bright.) The following available-light photos do not do justice to the food.

Beef filet in balsamic vinegar sauce

Beef with porcini mushrooms

Arielle also gets credit for discovering that one of the two best ice cream shops in Rome was a ten-minute walk away. I know I’ve posted this before, but just in case you forgot:

I wanted Carol and Arielle to see Santa Maria Trastevere, which as I keep saying is my favorite church in Rome so far. The church has the distinction, legend or truth, of being the first church where Christian mass was openly said. The church dates to the year 350, and the mosaics are from the 5th century.

As it turned out, we picked a good day. It was a Saturday, and the Pope was due to say mass there the next day. For the first time in all my visits, the church was brightly lighted, this for the benefit of the television cameras that were preparing to film Il Papa. The usually dark and quiet church was bustling with people adjusting lights and cameras.

All the normally shadowed mosaics  were brilliantly illuminated. The saints looked shocked at the intrusion.

A group of children was practicing for the Pope (and I used to think it special when the archbishop came to our church). The ceremony involved palms, but it wasn’t Palm Sunday, so we had no idea what was going on. We inquired about whether mass was open to the public only to learn that though it was, 4,000 people were expected to attend. The only way we could have gotten in would have been to hide under a pew and sleep there overnight.

The particular type of palm frond these kids are carrying has some special early Christian significance. I mean to track that down.

Last day! After carrying around umbrellas for the entire visit and using them most of the time, the sun was shining. The temperature was around 60F but with a brisk wind, which seems to blow constantly here.  We decided to eat outdoors anyway and had brunch on Campo di Fiori. Sunshine! Why people have been coming here for centuries.

Rome finally put out. About time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just discovered that Abraham Lincoln was so impressed with Giuseppe Garibaldi, the man credited with unifying Italy and driving out those nasty French and Austrians, that he offered Garibaldi a command post in the Union Army.

It’s rained nonstop for the past four days, and as Arielle pointed out last week, even when it sprinkles, Roman rain is wetter. This morning the rain finally stopped at around 10, and  I stuck my head far enough out of the window to see over the top of the buildings to a patch of bright blue sky.  Today’s itinerary was Janiculum Hill in Trastevere, the site of the battle for Rome in 1849 in which Garibaldi led a force of Red Shirts (independence/unification fighters) against the French and where his wife Anita, pregnant at the time, fought alongside him.  Italian history is hard for me to get at since most of it is written in Italian, but Garibaldi won the battle on Janiculum Hill and lost Rome in a subsequent battle.

A lot of people died here. In spite of the open park-like quality of the place, and the grand views, Janiculum Hill is really a necropolis. The death theme prevails. This street sign commemorates a 13-year-old boy who died in the battle.

And this one commemorates young men from Varese.

A wonderful equestrian statute of Garibaldi dominates the hill,

which offers sweeping views of the city, including the ugly wedding cake, the Vittorio Emmanuel II monument, which sticks out like a white canker on the pretty cityscape (see the big white box center right).  Vittorio Emmanuel did not treat Garibaldi well, and it seems fitting that as hard as architects tried to make his monument dominate the city, it’s Garibaldi who looks down on it.  And who knew that Rome was surrounded by white-capped mountains. I need to pay more attention to the local geography.

Anita’s monument is very touching. Actually, touching isn’t the word for it. Wild is a better one. Here she is riding a galloping horse, pistol raised, with a baby in her arms. She was 28 years old when she fought in this battle.

After the Red Shirts lost the last Roman battle, they fled to San Marino. Anita died of malaria and was buried along the way. According to one account I read, dogs dug up her grave. Whatever happened, her mortal remains are now on Janiculum Hill under a glorious statue.

Sometime when you need your spirits lifted, track down the story of the love affair of Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi. It serves as a template for every swashbuckling romance ever written. What a couple! As I was walking around the statue to photograph the wonderful sculptures on the base, I stopped just in time not to interrupt a couple (middle-aged!) who hidden from view and kissing passionately. Anita would have loved it.

Who are these men? Nothing I found in guidebooks or online explained these statues, about a hundred of them, that line the walkways on the hill.

They are definitely portrait busts, and I’ll track down their significance and relevance to this place. If anyone has any information, please share.

Another hilltop monument, this lighthouse, was erected by the Italian community of Argentina and represents the last view they had of their homeland as their ships sailed away to the New World. There was a huge emigration of Italians to Argentina in the 19th century, just as to the United States, prompted by economic conditions in Italy. I’ve met lots of Italian-Argentinians on my visits, including my cousin Mario, who came back to Italy. Argentina, which is in big economic trouble these days, was apparently a promised land back then.

The necropolis theme persisted on the road back down the hill. This is the tomb of Italy’s unknown soldier from the Great War.

Along the road that passes the monument, I saw these little shrines. I don’t know their significance.

A little fountain that looks ancient lightened the mood.

As if to match the somber mood of the place, the day that started out sunny turned cold and overcast. On my way home I stopped in Piazza St. Calisto for lunch, pulled pork with pickled zucchini (turned out to be a Vietnamese restaurant run by an Italian).

I walked home through Trastevere, past my new favorite bookstore

and stopped at my new favorite bakery for a half-loaf of bread (mezzo filone). I couldn’t resist the pizza, which makes me take back what I said about American pizza being better than Italian pizza. The variety here is astounding. I chose eggplant with sun-dried tomatoes and ham with ricotta, but I plan to try every other kind by the end of the trip.

I’m hoping  all this walking is going to save me from all the pizza and pasta I’m consuming.

Check out the river view from Ponte Sisto. The Tiber is rising! Last week you could see a walkway down there with people strolling along. Now the water is at least a meter over it.

Home! Via Giulia at last with Michelangelo’s little bridge to greet and reassure me that I’m going in the right direction.

By the way, Garibaldi declined Lincoln’s offer for two reasons: first, Garibaldi said Lincoln had not adequately condemned and abolished slavery, and second, Lincoln wouldn’t give Garibaldi supreme command of the Union Army.

Yesterday was a perfect day for a trip to the Borghese Gallery and the beautiful Borghese park. Someone wrote or said that the park was Rome’s green lungs, and it truly is.  I’ve had two memorable past experiences in the park. One was when a very old man came up to me out of nowhere, kissed me, then turned and walked away without a word. Another was when I encountered the Italian horseback patrol, three gorgeous men on horseback wearing uniforms that outdid every Italian uniform I’ve ever seen, which is saying a lot in a country that goes over the top with its uniforms.

I can’t say anything that hasn’t already been said about the collection or the park. I’ve been to the gallery before, but this time I was taken with the faces in the sculptures and paintings, faces that had nothing to do with stylized saints and angels and other heavenly creations. I figure these are the faces of people who actually lived (and of course were wealthy enough to get sculpted or painted by a famous artist). Unless you’re into this stuff, this will be boring. I just like having an idea of what real Romans looked like hundreds of years ago, the ones that didn’t wear halos or wings.

Here are some really old Romans.

And then there’s  Cardinal Borghese himself, who declared the gardens and the museum to be places without rules for the enjoyment of everyone, as long as they minded their manners. I don’t think this particular cardinal took the vow of poverty.

A view of his garden.

About the time I got all these pictures onto this page, the cursor froze, so I can’t add anything at the end — more tomorrow when I’ll start all over again. I don’t know who any of these people are or who painted them, but I loved their faces.

Leave it to a Presbyterian and a Jew to introduce a fallen RC to Catholic Rome. The first thing on the agenda for my friends Carol and Arielle was going to St. Peter’s on Sunday to be blessed by the Pope. After all my trips to Rome, this is the first time I’ve gone to be blessed. It definitely had something to do with this particular Pope (for example,  in his sermon he prayed for the Rohingya Muslims). I can’t say I understood much of the sermon, but Francis has a kind and gentle voice and seems like a nice man. It goes without saying that I couldn’t get a closeup of the Pope, but here’s the next best thing, Carol and Arielle awaiting their blessing.

As if getting blessed weren’t enough, Arielle discovered that the Pope buys his socks from Gammerelli, a  shop near us, so on Monday we headed out to buy Pope socks. As we entered, we noted that the only other customers were some very serious looking men in black suits. We waited our turn only to learn later that those guys in black suits were two cardinals shopping for vestments. The proprietor confirmed that the Pope does whop there, but that he buys only white socks.

Our obsession with artichokes continues. Carol and Arielle are as taken with them as I am, and we’ve managed to have them in one style or another at least once a day. Romans are all over ways to cook artichokes.

Braised artichoke marinated in olive oil and lemon and stuffed with anchovy.

Chicken with artichoke hearts and prosciutto.

We were wondering if artichokes were good for you since we’re eating so many of them, and Arielle, who knows everything or knows how to find out everything, told us that they’re one of the super foods, good for your heart and blood and kidneys and liver and everything else except your waistline, given that they’re usually accompanied by some wonderful fat.

We discovered that one of the two best gelato shops in Rome is only .2 miles from the apartment (can you tell we’re using Google maps to get around?), so we’ve gone there for the past three nights. The winner among the 50 or so flavors is Greek yogurt ice cream, which tastes just like old-time Creole cream cheese ice cream.

We haven’t just been eating. On Sunday we went to Santa Cecilia in Trastevere to see the mosaics and discovered the old Roman house underneath, which is supposed to have been St. Cecilia’s residence. Cecilia was a noble Roman woman who was an early martyr. Her story is yet another grisly martyr story, this one involving attempted suffocation and attempted beheading and several conversions. The house has several intact mosaic floors and other classic Roman features. At its center is an early Christian chapel full of mosaics that are at eye and hand level, so you could touch them is you were crass enough to do that. These are allegedly 9th century mosaics, but the faces look totally modern. I can’t find much on the history and provenance of that Roman part of the church, so I had to resort to dratted Wikipedia for what it says. But look. This is what the mosaics in the main church look like (high up behind the altar so no close-ups):

And these are mosaics in the chapel in the Roman house (at eye level):

I am a bit obsessed with mosaics. Have been ever since I visited a studio in Pietra Santa years ago where ancient men, the last of the Italian mosaic artisans, were building a mosaic using the same methods and materials that went into these 9th century ones. My next mosaic quest is the San Zeno chapel in Santa Prassede, but first my feet have to recover from the 8 miles (clocked, not exaggeration!) we walked yesterday.

In the end, I elected not to buy white pope socks but settled instead for the red ones cardinals wear, merino wool, over the knee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my everyday life, I’m accustomed to having to go somewhere else to see great art, usually to a different city. In Rome it’s everywhere. This city probably has more art and history than any other, yet it’s all  absorbed somehow as part of the city’s fabric. Here, for example, is a church, San Agostino, where people attend mass and go to confession that’s full of not particularly interesting 18th or 19th century paintings but with a Rafael fresco and a Caravaggio oil tucked away so that you have to search for them.

Caravaggio was hired by some church bigwig to make this magnificent painting, the Madonna of the Pilgrims, and he caused a flap by painting the two pilgrims with dirty feet. This hangs over one of about twenty side altars in the church of San Agostino, all with lovely paintings by people I’ve never heard of. If you didn’t know to look, you might miss it., except that stands out like a 200-watt bulb in its dark place.

Here’s another treasure from the same church, a fresco of a prophet by Rafaello (Raphael?). It’s on the top of one of many columns, all adorned by lesser artists, with no marker or label. I had to search the entire church for it.

I try to imagine what sort of art these grand artists would have made had they not been constrained by religious motifs. Maybe we would have seen scenes and people from everyday life and gotten a pictorial glimpse of their eras. As it is, you have to search the corners of paintings of annunciations or crucifixions for ordinary people and objects. Oh, those old Catholics!

Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is exactly what the name describes, a church built on top of the temple of Minerva. Here the Christians took their revenge as they often did by destroying a Roman building and its art to make way for a Christian church. The church has been renovated over the centuries (or bitched up as more accurately describes the process), but its treasures survive. The Florentine artist Fra Angelico, is here, the Dominican priest who made the magnificent frescoes in San Marco in Florence. He was in Rome making art for a pope when he died.

Near Fra Angelico’s tomb is a Michelangelo Christ that sits on  one side of the communion rail on the same level as many lesser sculptures as though it’s just another statue.

Those old Catholics were obsessed with reliquaries. This same church has the body of St. Catherine of Siena, minus her head, which is in Siena. As if that weren’t enough, here are the  bones of a St. Agnes, the first-ever Christian martyr.

And here is Mary Magdalene’s foot ,encased in bronze, in the church two doors down from my street. These were at least ladies’ size elevens. The woman had big feet.

I made the wrong turn leaving San Agostino and found myself facing what looked like and turned out to be the Spanish Steps. I headed in that direction along the Via Condotti, which is the heart of Rome’s fashion district. One store had a line of clothing  that may loom in our future that looked like stuff from Value Village. This gown appeared to be made of of scraps of faded tulle that had been dragged through ashes and then torn, not cut, into ruffles.

This is what Gucci was hawking. Are they serious?

What can I say about the Spanish Steps that hasn’t already been said. I don’t even know why they’re called Spanish except that the Embassy of Spain is about two blocks away.

Two adjacent places are remarkable to me, the house where Keats died

and a café where Byron and Shelley hung out. I recall that in 1986 I had a $12 lemonade in this cafe.

I still spend most of my time lost, but I’m getting better. My friends Carol and Arielle are here, and I’ll have many more adventures to describe. For now, here’s an end-of-day photo of Rome shamelessly flaunting herself.

 

The weather yesterday morning was perfect, like something out of a tourist pamphlet: clear, warm, with a bright blue sky. I grabbed my shopping bag and headed out to Campo di Fiori to find vegetables and bread. The campo is a small piazza ringed with food shops and restaurants that in the morning is given over to food vendors and in the evening to a lively nightlife. It’s a short walk from the apartment down narrow cobblestone streets lined with specialty shops and a pizzeria that claims to serve only organic food. When I first started going there ten or so years ago, the square was full of food and flower vendors. Now booths with tourist stuff have crowded them out so only about a third of the space sells anything you’d actually want.

The first thing I see on entering the square is this cute guy with a machine gun.

And then an assortment of food.

Ever wonder how your salad greens get prewashed?

Campo di Fiori has a special historic distinction: it’s where the Popes burned their heretics, a heretic being anyone they didn’t agree with or who rocked the church’s boat. Giordano Bruno, the second most famous heretic of all time (Jeanne d’Arc presumably being the most famous) was burned alive there on Ash Wednesday, February 17, 1600.  Bruno started out as a Dominican priest but broke with the church when he disagreed with various of its tenets. To escape the Pope’s vengeance, he traveled to all the great universities of the time in Germany, France, and England to expound his theories where he was welcomed at first and then kicked out when he failed to agree with whatever the current doctrine was. I’m no expert, but as nearly as I can tell, his main crime was that he disagreed with Aristotle: he believed the universe was infinite and wouldn’t stop talking about it.  Mainly, he pissed off the church hierarchy, especially the Pope, and wouldn’t recant his beliefs. Back then, you didn’t mess with the Pope. One of the crimes he was accused of was saying that the human soul could transmigrate into beasts. (What, you’re thinking?) I read between those lines that he was taunting the guys who were accusing him by suggesting that they might be reincarnated as cockroaches. He also dabbled in magic.

His famous last words to the Cardinals who sentenced him were, “Perhaps you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it.”

Today Romans and most of the world honor him as a great thinker, and people still put flowers on the spot where he died.

I can’t figure out whether the Syndicate of Rome is a political party or a sports organization. Anyone know?

This one is from a union of agnostics.

In other news, Italian eggplants don’t taste anything like the ones we get in the States, none of that characteristic bitterness I like. They also look funny.

 

And it’s possible to have an artichoke sandwich for breakfast.

I thought I’d figured out the elections here, but I’m lost sorting out the Italian political process. As I understand it, a nonaligned party, the Five Star Movement, won the most votes all on its own, but the three center right parties, including Berlusconi’s Forza Italiana, together won the majority in spite of each capturing less than half of what Five Star did. In Italy, parties win elections, form coalitions, and then choose a leader. That means the three center right parties probably have the power. The only good news is that Berlusconi can’t be elected leader because he was convicted of a felony, but his conviction is forgiven effective 2019. And we think the Electoral College is a mess. It reminds me that an Italian said to me last year that if Italy survived Berlusconi, the US could survive Trump.

It’s rained nonstop for days, and the city is drenched, big puddles everywhere to circumnavigate. Rome shines through it all, and I managed a few photos of the neighborhood from beneath my umbrella. I’m living in the Florentine district of the Via Giulia, named for Pope Julius II who ordered its construction in the early 16th century as a means of connecting what he considered the important parts of the city.  The tradition is that the street is the first example or urban renewal in Europe. I think Via Giulia started out as a bunch of Renaissance government buildings (the court for trying the Mafia is a few doors down from me), but nowadays it’s mostly antique shops and boutiques and what may be the best coffee bar in Rome.

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The websites I’ve looked at have picturesque views of the Via Giulia sans vehicles and people. I have no idea how the photographers managed that.

My apartment is just off Via Giulia on Viccolo Orbitelli, a small street a couple of blocks from the river.

Here’s a view from my window

and a view toward the Castell St Angelo, the Emperor Hadrian’s mausoleum.

I can only imagine what this inscription says. If it has something to do with the neighborhood, I don’t want to know.

The people in these buildings have to look across the street at those stone faces every day. Is the graffiti a flying donkey?

A plaque on the side of my building commemorates a company of Italian resistance fighters that the Nazis executed a few steps from my front door.

I just saw some blue sky. I’m going to turn on Waze and hit the streets. If I hurry, I can catch the Pope in his convertible at St. Peter’s. Today’s quest is the three churches apart from St. Peter’s that have Michelangelo sculptures.

 

I’m obsessed with artichokes. Can’t get enough of them. I know I should be thinking temples and statues and Michelangelo, but my main quest so far is for yet another artichoke. Why don’t we grow these smallish, totally tender versions in the States? Here, artichokes abound in various seasonal versions, from  round grapefruit-sized ones to tiny ones the size and shape of a long-stem rose. Romans do all sorts of wonderful things with them, depending on the season. Right now the choices are carciofi alla Giudica (artichokes Jewish style) and artichokes alla Romana. Giudca-style, they’re deep-fried in olive oil and are tender to the tips. The outer leaves taste like artichoke-flavored potato chips, and the insides are creamy and succulent.  Roman artichokes are boiled with olive oil and served whole with lemon. I put either version right up there with Gulf oysters on the half-shell or a Parkway Bakery shrimp poor-boy.

Now on to matters more traditionally Roman. I hadn’t visited the Protestant Cemetery since my first visit to Rome in 1985 with my dear departed friend, Joy. I wanted to pay homage again to Keats and to thank him for his poetry, which kept me sane during my divorce, and to think about Joy. Keats’s grave is covered in violets, and they were just beginning to bloom.

A big orange cat kept me company.

I love the way cemeteries tell just enough of a story to pique curiosity without satisfying it. For instance, who was this person (an artist?), so well known that all that was needed for an epitaph was a signature?

The cemetery incorporates the city’s ancient Aurelian walls.

All the flowers and plants are real, no plastic.

So far I’ve visited familiar haunts, but today with sunshine and with my feet recovered from those brutal Roman cobblestones, I’m off to the Aventine. Today is election day for the next governing party for Italy. If we think our election was scary, get ready for this one. I hope it turns out like the French elections, with a new Macron for Italy, but it’s scary.

In the meantime, just to prove that I’m not totally morbid, here is a shot of my so-far favorite church in Rome, Santa Maria Trastevere, with its 13th century mosaics

and yesterday’s view toward the Tiber on my way back home.