Merry Quiet Christmas

This was a different Christmas season for us and for most people I imagine.

The Christmas season in Italy starts on December 8, the Immaculata, the day immaculate conception and Mary the mother of Jesus is celebrated.  In Rome the Pope, with the help of the firemen, would traditionally decorate the statue of Mary near the Spanish Steps with a wreath of flowers.  It had been announced that, in order to prevent crowds, this would not be happening this year.  Early in the morning Pope Francis made a surprise visit and followed the tradition of placing the wreath with the traditional mass at Santa Maria Maggiore, also unannounced.  I was in the area a couple days later to visit a bookstore and saw the flowers that the Pope and others had left.

We were able to get a tree again this year, thanks to a friend with a car.  Ikea sells Christmas trees at a good price, but you have to get there early since they sell out fast.  We added to our ornament collection with a few things that will remind us of Rome and our time here.  We bought cute cookies at Ikea with the tree.  They were cute and smelled good, but absorbed the humidity in the air, softened, and pulled through the strings.  Only half survived.  The kids were good to leave the cookies on the tree, but if they fell they were fair game.

Hand painted glass globe from the jewelry store down the street.

Cookies and wooden cut outs

TP tube angel for the topper made by Evelyn

Glass motorino

Ceramic decorate in a traditional style

We had hoped to be able to get out of town for a few days while the kids were out of school, but this year the holidays came with strict travel restrictions.  We were not allowed to travel outside of our region or even our municipality on some of the days.  But we could walk around town and enjoy the lights and decorations.  If you are restricted to your city, this is a pretty good one to be stuck in.

In our wandering we found an underground tunnel that takes you from Villa Borghese to a parking garage and on to the Piazza di Spagna metro station.  Who knew?

Someone in our neighborhood even added their own decorations to a park near the walls with a couple of yard trees.

We took different family members on Facetime tours of Roman Christmas lights.  It was a lot of fun to show them our empty city after dark.  It isn't what you usually see.  We showed them lights and shop windows and landmarks and monuments that are familiar to us now.  It was fun to share it.  I hope that we will be able to have visitors sometime soon.  All of our visitors for the year were forced to cancel.

One night we went to see the light show at the Capitoline hill.  It was called "visions of Christmas" and featured projections of frescos and painting masterpieces depicting events from the birth of Jesus to the visit of the three wise men.  With so much cancelled and closed this series of light installations was meant to be a gift to the people of Rome.

 

It was a beautiful night so we walked through Piazza Venezia past the main city Christmas tree.  They call the tree Spelacchio, which means bald, plucked, or skinned.  It started a few years ago when the city had a very sad specimen of a tree that died much too quickly.  The tree this year looks beautiful, but the name stuck.

From Piazza Venezia we continued up one of the main shopping streets.  At this time of year it would normally be packed with people out shopping and enjoying the holidays.  Not so this year.  It was quiet and eerily empty.

Next up was Piazza Navona and the light show on my favorite fountain.  It was a beautiful night with the moon peaking from behind the clouds.  The shopping streets were light and bright, but this piazza was dark and hushed.

We ended the night at Piazza di Spagna and ate roasted chestnuts.  A couple of high end shopping streets are here.  The window displays are festive, but a contrast to the empty piazza.

Christmas Eve we celebrated with cioppino, our Bay area Italian-American tradition.  We modify the family recipe a bit based on what we can get and what we like, so mussels and shrimp for My Boy and scallops for John.  It's the only time of year I think to buy leeks.

As the kids get older it is harder to know what to get for them.  We were able to surprise My Girl with a few favorite American food items.  We can get the things we need, but there just isn't a market for nacho cheese taco shells here in Italy.  We added to Jack's collection of plaid and wool socks, and sometimes plaid wool socks, but I think we need to get more creative.  His closet is filling up.

Since we had a lot of time at home we watched more shows and movies than we usually do.  The Mandalorian is a hit and we started a chronological Marvel movie marathon.  Disney couldn't have timed their streaming service any better.  

We took walks on sunny days to some of our favorite spots, including Caffarella park.  It's not everywhere you can just climb up on the ancient ruins.  The rain and cold was making it easier to stay at home.

Just before the end of the holiday weeks I got out to see the last of the light displays.  This one was at Piazza del Popolo.  It was called Custodes: angeli su Roma or Guradians: Angels of Rome.  There are so many angels in the artwork and architecture in Rome.  They range from creepy baby face to sweet cherub, to beautiful women, to majestic archangel.  My favorites are the angels with swords.

Our neighborhood gate even got a bit of special treatment.  There wasn't any music or changing pictures, but we did get a couple of ornaments.  When I saw it going up I thought it was a light set up for filming a night scene for the latest Mission Impossible movie.  They have been filming in town, mostly in Monti.  My friend even saw Tom Cruz filming a chase scene near the Colosseum.

It's been a different holiday season this year.  But we have made made the best of it and enjoyed the time together.

Lyceum teacher tours: The beginnings of the Baroque

 My Boy's school has a lecture and tour series for parents and friends of the school where faculty and guests teach us a bit about the city we live in.  It has been wonderful.  The school has been fully online for the students for the past month or two, but the lyceum trips continue with masks, distancing, limited numbers etc.

The first tour of the year was all about Baroque architecture. Rome is the city where Baroque art and architecture really got their start.  The essence of the movement was its tie to the counterreformation movement in the Catholic church, particularly the Jesuit order founded by St Ignatius of Loyola.  This elaborate style with all of it's flourishes and gold was intended to awe and evoke strong emotions and remind people of the glory of the Catholic church at a time when the protestant movement was gaining traction.  There is a fantastic art history series on YouTube that includes a three part series on Baroque art.  The first part talks about Rome.  (These churches are featured in the last 20 minutes or so.  Other series on the Renaissance and Medieval art are equally good.) 

The first church we visited was the Chiesa del Gesu.  The facade of this church is considered to be the first truly Baroque church facade.  You can see the characteristic curls and pillars that are repeated in Baroque style Catholic churches worldwide.

Chiesa del Gesu

The squat rectangular building next door includes the rooms of St Ignatius himself.  The rooms themselves are quite spartan, but the corridor leading to them is elaborately decorated with scenes from the life of St Ignatius.  The painting was done in part by a Jesuit priest named Padre Andrea Pozzo.  He was a master of perspective and illusion.  From one spot in the room the figures seem to come out from the walls.  In this room you can get up close and see how he distorts the images to make it look right.

The Gesu rooms

Inside the church in one of the particularly elaborate side chapels, also designed by Pozzo, is this statue of St Ignatius.  It is revealed once a day.  The head and hands are replacements made by a student of Canova, a neoclassical sculptor.  The originals were reportedly melted down to pay war reparations to Napoleon.

St Ignatius chapel in Chiesa del Gesu

Detail of ceiling of Chiesa del Gesu

This type of perspective with the figures spilling out of the frames is particularly Baroque.

Ceiling, Chiesa del Gesu

Pozzo's masterpiece of illusion and Jesuit propaganda is the ceiling of the church of St Ignatius.

Chiesa del Sant' Ignazio

This is probably my favorite painted ceiling in Rome.  I'm not sure I can explain why.  It might be because it was such a surprise when I first saw it.  We just wandered in and stumbled across it.  It wasn't until later that I came to understand what I already liked so much.  It helps me to appreciate the gaudiness of the Roman Baroque.

The ceiling is flat, but painted to look vaulted with a window open to the heavens with a view of St Ignatius rising to meet Jesus Christ.  The Light coming from Christ and being redirected by St Ignatius leads to the four corners of the earth.  Here represented by the personification of Asia, Africa, Europe, and America.  Baroque artists seemed to like personifying places.  Here it was the places the Jesuits had missions.  In Bernini's fountain in Piazza Navona it is four rivers across the globe.

Ceiling of the Church of St Ignatius

The dark dome is quite different from the explosion of light and color.  It actually came first, or not really.  The dome is an illusion as well.  It is canvas painted to look like the interior of a dome when the builders ran out of money to build an actual dome.  It was Pozzo's work on the pretend dome among other work that earned him the work for the other parts of the ceiling.

View of the "dome" from directly below.

It was such a delightful tour.  I'm enjoying learning about things I know so little about.

A little bit of lots of things

What have we been doing?  So much and yet so little is seems.  The days are full of the tasks that keep life going.  It has been interesting to get to the point we are doing things over again, like Thanksgiving.  I've learned a lot in the time we have been here.  So much about Rome and how to live life here.

Weeks ago we went out to Lido di Ostia on a warm fall afternoon.  It was a beautiful day to walk along the beach and look for shells.  It reminded me of sunset walks in Santa Cruz, but with tiny pseudo-waves, a narrower beach and more shells.  For dinner we found a great place where My Boy could indulge his new-found love for shellfish.  I had a hamburger.

This is the more modern town near the ancient port of Ostia Antica.  From what I've heard the ruins there are spectacular.  I haven't seen them yet.  Someday.  Right now all of the museums and archeological sites are closed.  There are still beautiful and interesting things to see from the outside, but inside visits will have to wait.

We met up with some friends for lunch and to show them around our neighborhood.  We went into San Giovanni in Laterano  and across the street to the Scala Sancta.  Churches are open while museums are closed.  Fortunately there is a lot of art and history in the churches so there is still plenty to see if you can catch them during their open hours.

I don't remember if I've written about these spots yet, so I'll do a short-ish version in case it is a repeat.  Our neighborhood is short on historical hot spots, so this is the one and only tourist draw nearby.  It isn't as frequently visited, but it is quite an important building in the Catholic church.  Before becoming a church this was the site of the Laterani family palace.  The palace was donated to the bishop of Rome by Constantine I in the 4th century after he (Constantine, not the Pope) married into the family. The basilica of the palace was converted and extended and became Cathedral of Rome, the seat of the Pope, the bishop of Rome.  It is the official residence of the Pope and the highest ranking church in Catholicism, higher even than St Peters at the Vatican.  Over the centuries it has been burned, rebuilt and remodeled into the Baroque Cathedral it is today.  This church and the Scala Sancta are part of the treaty creating Vatican City as a separate state, so are technically not part of Italy.

The Baroque sculptures of the 12 apostles inside are quite impressive.  The Danish neoclassical sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen, was inspired by these apostles when he created his own version for a church in Copenhagen.  Digitally recreated marble copies of the Danish apostles are now at the visitor's center for the Rome temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Thorvaldsen's original Christus statue in the same Copenhagen church is known and copied worldwide.

Across the street are the Scala Sancta, or holy stairs.  These are the marble stairs that at one time lead to the praetorium of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem.  They were made holy when Jesus Christ walked on them during the time of his trial prior to His crucifixion.  The entire staircase was brought to Rome by Helena, the mother of Constantine in the 4th century when she was sent to Jerusalem to bring back religious relics.  There are a lot of relics in the city's churches.  This one, unlike so many others, seems plausible.  The steps were later moved to their current location leading to the Sancta Sanctorum and covered in wood to protect them from wear.  Pilgrims still come to ascend the stairs on their knees and say a prayer at each step.  Incredible frescoes illustrating biblical stories line the walls of the Scala and the alternate stair cases on either side.

The Sancta Sanctorum at the top of the stairs was likely built in the 7th century.  This was the private prayer room of the Popes until the Renaissance.  It is a little jewel box of a room with walls covered with incredible frescoes and mosaics and housing opulent reliquaries.

So much history in such a tiny little spot of city.

On weekends we take walks though the city and the parks.  There is always something beautiful to see.  Often it is just the way the light is bringing out a little bit of something to make it glow.  I love the quality of the light in the fall and winter here.  It is quite different from the glaring wash of sun in the summer.

View across the Tiber from the Ponte Sant'Angelo

Sant' Agnose in Agona - Piazza Navona

Fontana delle Tartarughe

We celebrated our second Italian Thanksgiving with missionaries from our church.  They are a great group of guys.  Three were American and one Chilean.  The Americans had been telling their Chilean companion all about the traditional foods of the day.  I was happy to oblige with plenty of stuffing, whipped cream, and pumpkin pie.  This year I knew where to find the turkey and the pumpkin and I was able to ask a friend to get me some cranberry sauce from the embassy commissary. It was such a fun evening.

Before coming to Rome, one of the missionaries was studying opera.  He and his accordian playing Chilean companion sang and played for us.  It is amazing to hear so close and in a small space.  I'm sure our land lady upstairs could hear us.  After a couple of songs we invited her to listen in from her balcony upstairs.  (She is older and in person visits aren't always the right thing.)  She got a lovely serenade.  I think she really enjoyed it.  This is one of the songs they sang for us.

This missionary is from Chile, but his family is Italian. He learned Italian from his mom at home.  There are many Italians in South America.  Many left Italy during the early to mid 1900s.  Anyone with Italian ancestry can claim citizenship so many people from these families are coming back.

I've been having fun with my black sketchbook and colored pencils.  It is quite different to work on black paper.  You have to think a bit backwards to leave the shadows and work on the lights.

The mornings are getting earlier and earlier according to the sun.  My girl gets on the bus for school before sunrise at this time of year.

The kids are cooking.  My boy was inspired by the mussels, cozze, he had in Ostia and wanted to make some himself for lunch.  They are cheap and easy to find so we found a few recipes and put something together.  I couldn't bring myself to eat them.  The shells look fine, but the little bits inside are just...  It makes me shudder.  My Boy loved them and ate all 2.2 pounds of them, minus the shells.  The broth was really tasty and we saved the leftover liquid gold in the freezer for our Christmas cioppino.

Until next time...

A wander-ful fall afternoon

 Friday afternoon I decided to take a break from the rumors of impending lockdowns and take a walk around the city.  I had a couple of stops in mind, but just wanted to be out and about on a beautiful day.

My first stop was an exhibit of painting and sculpture by the Spanish artist Manolo Valdes.  I absolutely love how he uses different techniques and materials to reinterpret the work of previous artists.  He particularly likes to reimagine the portraits by Diego Velasquez, the Spanish Baroque era painter.  Velasquez isn't the only artist he references.  You can also see his interpretations of works by Matisse and pop-artists like Warhol.  He uses recognizable shapes and morphs them into modern paintings and sculptures using a variety of materials including wood, bronze, iron, wire, glass, and alabaster.  His paintings have a lot of dimension to them since he applies heavy paint on to layers of coarse jute fabric.  His pieces, both the paintings and the sculptures, are made from materials pieced together in interesting and intentional ways.

Queen Isabella of Bourbon Equestrian by Diego Velasquez 1635

My next stop was Castroni where I wanted to buy canned pumpkin and dark chocolate Toblerone bars.  Some things are hard to find, but there are a few shops that specialize in imported foods.  Yes, you can buy pumpkin and other squashes in the fall and make your own puree.  But what if you want to make pumpkin bread in April?  Even the canned stuff is only available seasonally.

I took the long way to get there.  I walked through Piazza Navona and took pictures of the fountains.  I was inspired by the Vandes exhibit to keep thinking about and working on paintings based on Classical and Baroque sculptures.  I always need more reference photos.  Right?

Then through the neighborhoods and under the trees as I walked along the Tiber.  I caught glimpses of Castel Sant Angelo through the leaves.

On to St Peter's and the easily accessible clean and free public restrooms at the Vatican.  This combination is a rare find in this part of the city.  Here I took a little break and read and watched the people in the square.  It was pretty quiet.  So unusual.

After my pumpkin purchases at Castroni and a stop for a maritozzo snack I wandered back along and across the river through the side streets toward Largo Argentina.  I came across a building with an elaborately decorated exterior wall.  I wonder if it was originally an interior wall.  It's possible.  This type of painting isn't common on buildings.  But I don't know.

Once home I had a few minutes to sit before going to pick up my Academic Witch from the bus stop.  It's dark now that day light savings time is over.  I had to stop at the gelateria on the way there to make sure they are open past six.  I didn't want to miss them.  Part of the latest restrictions involve restaurants etc closing or being open only for take out after 6 pm.  This is tough on them since many places don't open for dinner until 7 or 7:30.  Fortunately they were open so we would be able to get our traditional cone for the walk home.  They partially wrapped the top in foil to make it a "take-out" cone.

Morning of the school Halloween party

It was a great day.  I really like Rome in October.

The boys were out of town for a little trip since My Boy didn't have school on Thursday or Friday.  They visited a former leper colony in Ancona, Medieval castles in San Marino, a street market in Bassano, Monte Grappa, and a British WWI cemetery.  They saw cows wearing flower crowns and big alpine bells being herded down the street.  They ate some really good food that was quite different from what we have in Rome because of the German influence in the North.  They had a wonderful weekend.  I am a little jealous, but it is good for them to have some guy time.