On the top of Castel Sant'Angelo is a statue of Michael the Archangel. At the end of a 6th century plague the Archangel is said to have appeared on the top of Hadrian's tomb sheathing his sword, a sign of the end of the plague. Maybe that's why I chose this subject to paint. It's been a long spring with lockdowns over spring break and stress for the kids about school etc. But the school year ended and summer officially started. I hope this means that things will be more open and we can relax and enjoy a bit. I was able to attend the MS awards assembly virtually and see My Girl presented subject awards for math, English, engineering, Italian, and an overall award for academic excellence. I was so pleased to see her work recognized and I hope that this will provide some concrete reinforcement for her that she is doing enough, more than enough really.
We celebrated my birthday all together. I'm not 21, thank goodness, but those are the candles we had so we went with it.
There are days when lunch is just so pretty you want to take a picture of it. I'm not a foodie and would never be a food blogger, but today it looked so good. This spring My Boy's school had a virtual olive oil tasting for the parents. They sent us a box with 6 mini bottles of different olive oils. It was fun. I definitely had a favorite. The milder ones were grassy and the stronger ones were quite bitter. My favorite was in the middle and tasted a bit like tomato vines smell. It's perfect on mozzarella.
We finally had a visitor from the States. Our friends' daughter just finished her first year of college. It was a disappointment with everything online and social things limited. As soon the country opened up for US tourists she was on her way. She invited several other friends, but for a variety of reasons including delays at the passport offices, she ended up coming on her own. It was fun to show her around town and take a couple of side trips with her. It reminded me how much I like the city where we live.
Our visitor in our very small elevator
We went to the Vatican museum. The kids and I went last year, just before the lock downs. It was interesting to go back. There is so much to see you notice different things each time. I'm still incredibly impressed with all of the mosaics floors. They are incredible works of art themselves.
This past quarter I took an art history class online at the school where I teach. It covered prehistory through the ancient Romans and ended with just a bit of early Christian art. It was quite interesting to see how it all connects and evolves. There is quite a bit of ancient sculpture and early Christian art in the Vatican museum. I appreciated it more after learning more about it. Perhaps next year I'll take the next classes in the series. I want to know more about Medieval and Renaissance art. I could read on my own, and I do a bit, but the structure of a class helps me.
I'm intrigued by the symbolism of peacocks in art. The birds are beautiful with their amazing colors and majestic tails, but there is more to it than that. They are a motif that keeps popping up in ancient Roman and early Christian art as well as other places and cultures. Because peacocks lose their tail feathers and regrow them each year they were, at times, used as a symbol of eternal life and resurrection. It's one of those funny things where once you notice something it starts to show up everywhere.
We also used our guest as a reason for a weekend trip to Pompeii. We went through Naples and had to stop for dinner there. Of course when you are in Naples you must eat pizza. My cousin's son is serving a mission for our church here in Italy. He is in Rome right now, but had been previously assigned to Naples so we asked him for recommendations. He recommended Pellone, the place the missionaries always go. It was the perfect place. We lined up outside and were soon let in a side door around the corner. They were surprised to see Americans. Tourists are just starting to come back, but this didn't really look like a tourist place. The pizza was good and the experience was fun, but I think they judge the quality based on quantity. Those were the biggest pizzas I've seen in Italy. He also recommended Sorbillo's and Da Michele, in case you are ever in the neighborhood.
We hired a guide to show us around Pompeii. It was nice to have someone explain what we were seeing and tell us stories about the city. The short-ish version of the story is that this sea-side city was buried in ash, rock, and mud from an erupting Mt Vesuvius in the late fall of 79 A.D. I sometimes think of this as an instantaneous event, but it is believed that the eruption and devastation progressed over a course of 2 days with a series of ash and rock falling from the sky and flows of poisonous gasses and mud. Most people died during the second day from asphyxiation from the fast moving pyroclastic flow of hot ash and gasses. The nearby town, Herculaneum, was also buried, but it is less well known. Pliny the Younger watched the destruction from across Naples Bay and later recorded the events in letters. Even though thousands of people died, there were still many who escaped into nearby towns. Emperor Titus gave money from those who died without heirs to cities to help with the influx of refugees.
In the 18th century the cities were rediscovered and the ongoing excavations began.
Pompeii was amazing. It was wonderful to see it with only a few other visitors. One of the first things I noticed were the stones set on the diagonal in one of the gates entering the city. I hadn't noticed this in Rome before, but I've seen it since then. Setting the stones this way may have made the walls more resistant to the frequent earthquakes in the area. In fact, a serious earthquake had damaged the city 17 years before the eruption of Vesuvius, but this wall stayed.
Much of what was found in Pompeii is no longer there but is scattered in museums around the world. The closest is in Naples. There was a little exhibit on jewelry and other tiny things that was quite interesting.
Several rooms were filled with amphorae, bits of columns, and one
plaster cast. These amazing figures show the space left in the ash where people were buried during the eruption. Their bodies decomposed covered in hardened ash and left a human shaped hole. These casts can include the skeleton and other remains and are now being
scanned and studied.
Pompeii is interesting because it is a city where life was suddenly interrupted. In many other archeological sites the population dwindled and the buildings fell into ruin over the years. Because life was still happening you can see things like political campaign "
posters" on the exterior walls along the streets. There is all sorts of other graffiti, some of it quite
unsuitable for children. Luckily it is all in Latin. An oven was found with carbonized bread still inside. People and animals were found in the city where they lived, as they lived, not just in tombs or burial mounds.
L OD LV LA IS VP M OVF
"I beg you to elect Lollius, suitable for roads and public and sacred buildings"
Lollium d(ignum) v(iis) a(edibus) s(sacris) p(ublicis) o(ro) v(os) f(aciatis) (source)
The houses have been restored to various degrees. This one has had the roof replaced and the garden in the central courtyard replanted.
I still love mosaic floors. So much fun. If you don't have a real dog, you can have a quieter version at the door.
One dog mosaic includes the words
Cave Canem, beware of dog. There are several houses with mosaic dogs chained to the entry.
Not all of the buildings are houses. There were shops and temples and all of the usual buildings as well. This would have been a
taberna or
termopolia where you could get a bite to eat and something to drink. Food was often served from pots set into the counter. There are remains of the meals in the pots so we have a pretty good idea of what was served. Foods included bread, cheese, lentils, chicken, fish, and beef as well as ducks, goats, and snails.
Most of the tall apartment buildings for the common people, insulae, did not have kitchens or cooking areas so much of what they ate came from one of these shops. In these buildings the ground floor housed shops. The apartments closest to the ground were the most spacious and expensive and the cheapest and least desirable places were the highest in the building. It seems that the Romans were less impressed by views and more impressed by not having to climb so many stairs. Important when you consider the general lack of indoor plumbing.
The long straight streets in town were carefully laid out. The streets were sunken between sidewalks on either side. At night the city fountains were flooded to help wash out the streets. Crossing stones were in place so that you didn't have to step into the filthy streets to cross. Carts had to be a particular size so that the wheels could fit through the gaps. You can see the ruts in the paving stones and the wear on the stepping stones. Researchers have studied the wear patterns on the pavers and stepping stones and have figured out the pattern for the one way streets. That's a fun puzzle.
Mt. Vesuvius
Just reading a little Latin
Shade!
After Pompeii we went to a local beach for a bit. We weren't really prepared for the beach and were way overdressed by Italian standards, but the girls had a good time playing in the water for an hour or so. We chatted with the man working at the snack shack. It was tough to get a taxi to come get us so we walked part way to the train station before we found a guy offering rides into town. (Totally not at all suspicious.) From there we took a rickety old local train full of ragazzacci headed home from the beach, then the regional train from Naples back home. We were lucky to get seats. The trains were full of weekend travelers going back north. It was an adventure.
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