Italian Vacation 2023

After walking an obscene number of steps yesterday, we slept in today - just kidding we instead hopped in a cab at 6:30am to make our way to Vatican City for a tour of the Vatican, Sistine chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica. After the tour, we went to the apartment for a little chill/nap time before heading out to lunch to have trapazzino (sandwich meets pizza) and suppli (like arancini). Delicious. We slowly made our way to the Colosseum with a stop at an excellent gelato place with small batch gelato (creamier and richer than the other - which is still good!). We waited a while for our tour of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum including the underground area, but it was worth the wait. After the tour, we walked back with Dave narrating the entire history of the Colosseum after it was no longer used by the Romans. We made a stop on the way for GIANT aperol spritz’s and assorted meats where we sat next to a semi-famous band, Atilla. Definitely not our scene since they are metal but kudos to Carrie’s detective skills for even noticing. We returned for showers and then to dinner in our neighborhood for some delicious pasta - specifically pesto which we have not had yet. We ended the evening with, you guessed it, gelato (Dave had tiramisu instead). A great final day in Rome. We learned so much, I could not possible recount for you. So here’s a few take aways:

The art work and architecture across the city comes from many places and was influenced by several different cultures. Even the Vatican is not purely Roman Catholic, but includes the Etruscan (who named the Vatican), a whole lot of paganism, Egyptian, Greek, early Roman Empire, and includes even a small nod to us Jews with some “Old Testament” depictions. Later, as we approached the Arch of Titus on our tour of the Roman Forum, we learned that the Colosseum was financed and built from the valuables pillaged from the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and built by Jewish slaves. Our colosseum tour guide said that “Rome turns ruins into foundation”. It’s a city built in layers. There are all sorts of ruins underneath the streets and anytime they do construction they often find some new ruin. And it’s built in layers because it’s inspired by (or pillaged from) other cultures. In the early days of Christianity they understood that in order to win people over, they could not be radically different from current practice. That meant adopting pagan roots - such as choosing December 25 for the date of Christmas. The ability to highlight commonality made it easier to convert people.

For a holy place, there’s a whole lot of debauchery at the Vatican. First of all, the fact that there is so much decadence and money put into it both past and present is a little much. But hey if anyone understands you need money to run a religious institution, it’s me. Just feels a bit excessive. Raphael, one of the main artists of the Vatican, died of syphilis like many of his times, enough said. Pope Alexander Borgia was a real winner. Unfortunately, the only way a pope leaves his position is through death so his orgies, drinking, violence, murder, and corruption kept up. Interested in that? Apparently there’s a graphic tv show about him - The Borgias on showtime. Not to mention the violence depicted in the art. One of the pieces in the Sistine chapel on the wall, the Last Judgment, is pretty brutal - note to self, don’t go to hell.

The violence of course isn’t limited to the Vatican. Our visit to the Colosseum gave even more insight and understanding to its purpose and functionality. Gladiators were like WWE stars - they each had their own shtick and often it was a bit rigged to make for good entertainment. Ok yeah sometimes the loser died, but seems like that wasn’t such a big deal to them…considering they didn’t need jails at one point cause they had public execution of criminals for entertainment in the Colosseum too. It was a nice lunchtime break for people. They also shipped in animals from across the world to fight them. These animals were caged underground and brought up to the stadium floor via elevators. The use of animals, while cruel in its practice, was not simply for entertainment. It was used to provide food for the people. The Colosseum was about “Bread & Circus” - food and entertainment. The philosophy was that if you provided that to the people, you could manipulate them with political propaganda. If you feed and entertain people for free they tend to do what you want. Why so much violence for entertainment? First of all, have you seen the tv shows we have today, it works for drawing people in. Second, the Romans were conquerers, their citizens were soldiers and so this was a way to teach them the violence they needed in order to be successful.

There was a lot of backstabbing in Ancient Rome through the rise of Christianity. 74 out of 82 emperors were assassinated. Tough job. Even art was used to express dismay towards someone you disliked. Michelangelo and Raphael both utilized their paintings not just to depict the surface subject or story but as a way to share their own personal thoughts. If you pissed them off, your face ended up on the ugly/evil character in the painting. If they wanted to honor you, you got a good spot. Art has always been an expression of personal conviction not an objective representation of the fact or history, this is no different.

The original ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was blue with stars. Michelangelo didn’t really want to paint it. He wasn’t even a painter, but it’s hard to say no to the Pope, I guess. He had to learn the Fresco technique of painting to do the ceiling. Once he did, he fired most of his assistants. So much for employee appreciation. One of the reasons to use this technique is to ensure it stands the test of time. While much of what we see in Roman architecture and sculptures is beige/gray, many pieces in fact originally had color that has either been removed or faded over time. They loved using color - probably represented decadence and wealth. Apparently they thought that by having the wealthy demonstrate their wealth publicly, it would make the poor people feel better. Cause that never led to any rebellions or revolutions. Who knew calling out socioeconomic inequity would cause resentment?

A few travel notes:
Getting up early was an excellent idea. Glad we did it.
There are free water fountains across the city yet you have to pay for water at restaurants. Annoying.
Finding shade is essential.
Underground tour was well worth it at the Colosseum.
When someone asks if you want a medium or small aperol spritz, say small, medium is like 3 drinks on one.

Tomorrow we’re off to Sorrento for relaxation!

Today’s walking: 22,616 steps, 10.7 miles, 21 flights.Read more