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Renault Roaming

outubro 2018 - maio 2024
Italy -- Croatia - ?
All in my little Red Renault Trafic Leia mais
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  • ViajanteRenault Roaming
    1
    21
    Dia 47

    Roming around

    13 de dezembro de 2018, Itália ⋅ 🌧 10 °C

    + Recently, Americans have had a problem with their politicians being economical with the truth, particularly regarding their closeness to Russians. Since ancient times the problem was solved here with the aid of this statue, known as "La Bocca della Verita". Dating back to around the 1st century CE, the original purpose of the Mouth of Truth is unknown: it may have been a ceremonial well cover, fountain decoration or even a manhole cover. The face itself has been said to represent your favorite pagan whichever it is. What has been known since medieval times is that if you stick your hand in its mouth and tell a fib, it will be bitten off.
    + Another politician who liked the sound of his own voice was Benito Mussolini. He enjoyed yelling at the crowd from this balcony above the Piazza Venezia, delivering some of his famous speeches including the declaration of the Italian Empire in 1936, and a declaration of war on France and Britain in 1940. The Piazza is named for the ornate palace, Palazzo Venezia, that dominates one side of the square. Mussolini’s office was located in the Sala del Mappamondo in the palace throughout the 1930s, and the balcony off the room overlooked the square just below.
    + This segues effortlessly to the Cloaca Maxima, one of the oldest relics in Rome, now used as a campsite for the homeless. Constructed during the reign of Tarquinius Priscus (6 BCE,) to empty the marshlands and carry stormwater from the central Forum section of the city, this is the point where it drains into the river Tiber. 300 years later the open drain was covered and waste from latrines and public baths were directed through the system. Apparently Agrippa later cleaned them out and enlarged them to take the flow from 11 aqueducts.
    “Sometimes water from the Tiber flows backwards and makes its way up the sewers. Then the powerful flood-waters clash head-on in the confined space, but the unyielding structure holds firm.” [Pliny the Elder]
    + Lifting our focus now, this Art Nouveau courtyard was built in the late 19th century for the influential Sciarra family. It was meant to be a shopping mall, which, had it come to fruition, would perhaps be one of the most beautiful shopping centers in Rome. You can find it, though most tourists dont, just round the corner from the Trevi Fountain and the Via del Corso. Each of the central facades is covered by colourful frescoes of women and men surrounded by elegant, curling floral designs. The women are the main focus, as the artwork, which was painted by Giuseppe Cellini, is intended to celebrate women in the various phases of life.
    Eat your heart out Frank Lowy (Westfields).
    + I've no idea whose triumphant arch, not 200m from the Bocca on the via Velabro,this is. But now it belongs to the rhino.
    + And similarly this elephant transfixed by an obelisk must have meant something to someone.    Leia mais

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  • ViajanteRenault Roaming
    Dia 47

    Browning pieces

    13 de dezembro de 2018, Itália ⋅ 🌧 9 °C

    I asked the hotel receptionist what three things not on the main tourist route she would recommend seeing, and the first thing she said was to see the mosaics in the Basilica of Saint Praxedes, (Santa Prassede,) so off I went to find it.
    Along the way I passed a nice green park with plastic bags covering the grass. Nothing to remark on except that the municipal groundsman was carefully going over the area on a ride-on mower, leaving plastic confetti everywhere.
    Eventually, on a narrow lane adjacent to Santa Maria Maggiore, I found the unsigned entrance on the side of the church that was commissioned by Pope Hadrian I c. 780 to house the bones of St Praxedes and St Pudentiana; and built on top of the remains of a 5th-century structure.
    + The famous mosaics, Byzantine, years 817-824, cover the funerary Chapel of Saint Zeno that Pope Paschal built for his mother, Theodora.
    + The main altarpiece is a canvas of St Praxedes Gathering the Blood of the Martyrs (c. 1730-35) by Domenico Muratori.
    + Allegedly, this segment of the pillar upon which Jesus was flogged and tortured before his crucifixion in Jerusalem was retrieved from the Holy Land in the early 4thC by the 80 year old mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine I. She also found a surprising number of other authentic artifacts, such as pieces of the True Cross, which no doubt Con found useful when establishing his new state religion.
    PS Remember Robert Browning?
    https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43746/th…
    This is the church that evidently inspired him. If you understand the poem, keep it to yourself.    Leia mais

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  • ViajanteRenault Roaming
    Dia 48

    Transverberation or just fun

    14 de dezembro de 2018, Itália ⋅ 🌧 7 °C

    The second item on the young receptionist's list was in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.
    + Probably the finest statue in the world IMHO, the Transverberation of Saint Teresa was sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1652 and depicts an episode of angelic shafting as described by Teresa of Avila, a mystical cloistered Discalced Carmelite nun, in her autobiography, 'The Life of Teresa of Jesus' (1515–1582):
    "I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying."
    + Bernini's work struck me as the finer, but there are many more expert than I am who reckon that Michelangelo's Moses in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, is the best.
    The 1513 statue shows Moses sitting with the Tablets of the Law under his arm, while his other hand fondles his long beard, which according to Vasari was carved with such perfection that it seems more a "work of brush than chisel". Moses is angry having found the Israelites worshiping a golden calf, and seems to be on the verge of getting up and destroying everything. An anger which is perfectly conveyed in marble by the swollen veins and tensed muscles. The horns on the head of Moses apparently result from an incorrect translation of the Exodus book which says that as Moses came down from Sinai, he had two rays on his forehead. The Jewish "karan" or "karnaim" - "rays" - may have been confused with "keren" - "horns".
    According to many critics this was one of Michelangelo’s favourite works as he considered it extremely realistic. Once the work was finished he hit it and ordered it to speak, but of course he knew that the statue only spoke to tell the sculpture what the marble contained..
    ===============
    The third statue in the Campo de Fiori is of Giordano Bruno, a 16th C Dominican friar during in the 1500s who came to believe that the universe was infinite and that there were multiple important worlds, all of which were equally overseen by an aspect of God. After a 7 year trial, on 17 Feb 1600 he was led into the Campo de’ Fiori with a spike through his tongue, and at the request of Cardinal Bellarmine, burned at the stake before his ashes were cast into the nearby river Tiber. The Vatican has failed in its attempt to have this commemorative statue removed and has refused to remove the taint of heresy from Bruno.

    + Modern art which perhaps someone can explain to me.    Leia mais

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  • ViajanteRenault Roaming
    1
    Dia 48

    Humble egocentricity in a Roman Emperor?

    14 de dezembro de 2018, Itália ⋅ 🌧 7 °C

    The emperor Hadrian (A.D 117-138) never inscribed his name to any building but one, the temple of his father Trajan. Which is why his replacement for the burnt down Pantheon that Marcus Agrippa had built bears the legend:
    "M. AGRIPPA.L.F.COS TERTIUM.FECIT”
    “Marcus Agrippa son of Lucius, in his 3rd Consulship, made it”.
    Brick stamps on the side of the building reveal it to have been constructed between A.D 118 and 125; classified as a temple though of a competely different form to other ones in Rome.
    They built the structure on marshland on 8 solid piers supporting a series of intersecting arches.
    The dome is made from pozzolana cement – cement made by grinding together lime and a volcanic product found at Pozzuoli - constructed in tapering courses or steps that are thickest at the base (20 feet) and thinnest at the oculus (7.5 feet). .
    The density of the material decreases in height as well: from aggregates like basalt at the base, then a mixture of travertine and tufa, then tufa and brick, then all brick was used around the drum section of the dome, and finally pumice, the lightest and most porous of materials on the ceiling of the dome.
    The dome is lightened by coffering, which gives it the square scalloped look, and by the 8m wide oculus, which also allows light to enter. Finally, empty clay jugs were embedded into the dome’s upper courses.
    The dimensions of the interior height and the diameter of the dome are the same: 145 Roman feet or 43.2m making it the largest dome in the world until very recently. Mathematically and geometrically it can only be described as elegant, although Michelangelo reputedly remarked that it seemed of “angelic and not human design.”
    I could have stayed here for a long tie learning about its construction and seeing how the design fitted together so perfectly.
    OTOH I was not too sure about this piece of art in an exhibition being held there.    Leia mais

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  • ViajanteRenault Roaming
    Dia 49

    Can't help seeing

    15 de dezembro de 2018, Itália ⋅ ☀️ 9 °C

    I wasn't going to, but I guess I had to take these snaps.
    + The oval Colosseum is the largest amphitheater in the world. Measuring 189m long, 156m wide and 50m high (about the height of a 12 storey building), it had 80 entrances and seated up to 50,000 spectators who attended for free, drinks and food included. Built between 72 A.D and 80 A.D under the Emperor Vespasian, the first games were held by his son Titus in 80 A.D,running for 100 days straight. They killed up to 10,000 animals including humans daily.

    + the Trevi fountain dates back to the construction of the Aqua Virgo Aqueduct in 19 B.C. It’s said that the Aqua Virgo, or Virgin Waters, is named in honor of a young Roman girl who led thirsty soldiers to the source of the spring to drink. The fountain was built at the end point of the aqueduct, at the junction of three roads. These three streets (tre vie) give the Trevi Fountain its name, the Three Street Fountain.
    The present fountain was finished in 1762 standing 85 feet tall and 65 feet wide. With water pumping out of multiple sources and the large pool in front, the fountain recycles about 2,824,800 cubic feet of water per day. It was financed by money earned from the reintroduction of the lotto. (The first winning numbers: 56, 11, 54, 18 and 6.)

    + The restaurant was much more attractive though.    Leia mais

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  • ViajanteRenault Roaming
    Dia 49

    Dan Brown was here

    15 de dezembro de 2018, Itália ⋅ ☀️ 7 °C

    This is the real Priory of the Knights of Malta, at the intersection of via di S. Sabina and via di Porta Lavernale on the Aventine hill.
    Although the property has been in their hands for centuries, the site was originally a fortified palace belonging to Alberico II, the ruler of Rome from 932-954. Next it became a benedictine monastery before passing first into the hands of the Knights Templar in the 1100s, then finally to their brothers in arms, the Knights of Malta in the 1400s. As it holds extraterritorial status, it is not technically “Italy” within the walls.
    Peeping through the keyhole of the door is obligatory. Nobody knows whether it was by design or accident, but what the butler saw is unique in the world: two nation-states and one country.
    For centred in the image at the end of a straight garden path is the dome of St Peter's cathedral in the Vatican City.
    Unfortunately everything was closed so I could only have a sticky beak.    Leia mais

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  • ViajanteRenault Roaming
    Dia 49

    Bath: Royal Crescent or Diocletian?

    15 de dezembro de 2018, Itália ⋅ 🌙 6 °C

    The Piazza della Repubblica impressed me for what is not there any more. It was formerly known as the Piazza dell'Esedra because it was laid down on the remains of an exedra (a semi-circular open room with seating) from the Diocletian era.
    Commissioned by the Emperor Diocletian in 298 AD, the baths were completed in 306 with a capacity of over 3,000 people. The whole complex took up 120,000 square meters and included a gymnasium, a library, and cold, hot and tepid public baths. Big.
    The Roman public baths remained open until 537, when the Goths cut off the aqueducts in an attempt to conquer Rome, whereupon they were taken over by bandits and courtesans until the Renaissance, when the grounds were bought by the French cardinal Jean du Bellay, who commissioned the construction of a beautiful villa and its gardens.
    So this large piazza occupies the space of the waiting room for the baths! On one side are the ruins of the baths, and the entrance to a church. On the other is a copy of the Royal Crescent in Bath, with the inevitable view of the Wedding cake in the distance.
    In the centre stands the majestic Fontana delle Naiadi, constructed between 1870 and 1888 and decorated with four lion sculptures. In 1901 the lions were replaced by the statues of four nude Naiads (water nymphs). Such blatant nudity shocked the citizens - for a while anyway.    Leia mais

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  • ViajanteRenault Roaming
    Dia 50

    A church I liked!

    16 de dezembro de 2018, Itália ⋅ ⛅ 7 °C

    Behind the scruffy facade on the North side of the Pazza della Republica, behind the scruffy ruined walls, lies the church that Michelangelo built by order of Pope Pius IV on top of part of the cold water baths of Diocletian in honour to all the Christian slaves who died building them.
    Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri was designed by Michelangelo in 1661 and is the only Renaissance style church in Rome.
    The interior of the church is huge but perfectly proportioned as one would expect from Michelangelo and does not give the feeling of a central railway station as one might anticipate from the bare façade. It is decorated with vast frescoes on its walls and enormous multi-coloured marble columns, but not to excess.    Leia mais

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  • ViajanteRenault Roaming
    Dia 50

    More Santa Maria degli Angeli

    16 de dezembro de 2018, Itália ⋅ ⛅ 8 °C

    A few more photos of this impressive church.
    + Chapel
    + Modern painting
    + Skylight
    + Front door
    + Back door to the rest of the ex-baths
    + An impressive organ, recently bought, has 5,400 tubes but doesn't look overwhelming. Just shows how large is the space.Leia mais

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  • ViajanteRenault Roaming
    1
    Dia 50

    Just in time

    16 de dezembro de 2018, Itália ⋅ 🌧 9 °C

    In the 18th century a meridian sun dial had been built in a Spanish church that, while Christian, was not in Rome. To rectify this disparity of grandeur Pope Innocence XII had the meridian line clock built here. Among other practical reasons, the location was chosen because it was the site of Diocletians baths and therefore was seen as a fitting symbol of the victory of the infallible Gregorian calendar over Roman / pagan ones.
    It is a double meridian made up of 2 gnomons, one oriented to the South and the other North. The former tells the precise time of the sun's zenith the date and the inclination of the sun's rays on that date while the latter traces the polar star's movements.
    The way the austral gnomon or solar meridian works:
    + the sun's rays shine through the small hole in the south wall onto the floor of the basilica,
    + striking a long strip of copper plated brass which runs from the transept to the presbytery precisely at 12 noon.
    Bianchini’s meridian tells when noon was throughout the year, the arrival of the solstices and equinox, as well as a being a calendar.
    + for some unexplained reason there is a large pendulum beside the sun dial. On the ball there is a map of the world and you can just see Australia.    Leia mais

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