Whirlwind Tour of St. Peter's

I've mentioned before that my husband and his family, seventh-generation Roman Romans Residing in Rome, have managed to retain their citizenship without having actually seen much of their own hometown.  Any true inhabitant of the Eternal City can tell you how to get to the Borghese Galleries or to Santa Maria Maggiore - he just can't tell you what those places look like inside.  It seems to be sort of a boast for a Roman to be able to list the seven hills of Rome while admitting that he has managed to avoid four of them for his entire life.

I was an enigma to these people; I who had visited the Vatican Museums nine times in one summer; I who, that same summer, used to slip into every church I passed on my route home from my Italian classes, checking them off and marking the dates in my guide book.  During my summer learning Italian, every evening over dinner, they would ask me "Che cosa hai fatto oggi?", "What did you do today?" and they would reply with me in unison: "Sono andata al Vaticano", since the chances were good that I had, indeed, been to the Vatican that day.

So it was a surprise to me, many years later on one of my visits to Rome with my husband, when my mother-in-law announced that she wanted to come with us to St. Peter's Basilica on our annual pilgrimage.  Of course, having been born and raised 10 miles down the Tiber River from the Vatican, this would be her first visit there - the opportunity had never arisen during the previous 55 years, so we arranged to go on a Wednesday morning when the markets were closed and she was free.  The #23 bus takes you straight there from the house - no transfers, no confusion, but we took the smallest car in the household to avoid the hassle of public transportation and were extremely lucky (or were we blessed?) to find a parking spot on the Via della Conciliazione, mere meters away from the dome of St Peter's.

Today there are lines to wait in and metal detectors before you can enter the basilica, but since it was 1985, we strolled in and made an immediate right turn to the first aisle where you find Michelangelo's Pieta'.  The sculpture is massive in size and, even behind protective glass, it is breathtaking and awe-inspiring - truly a wonderful introduction to the treasures that awaited us beyond.  My mother-in-law was duly impressed, but when we about-faced to walk up the north aisle to visit the rest of the basilica, she commented on how big of a place it was and after the long walk from the car, could she rest a little while before we ventured on?  I've never been one to sit down when there are wonders to behold, so it was decided that she would wait on one of the chairs set up near the entrance to the Treasury where my husband and I would pop in to look at the Papal jewels.

Bernini's Altar of the Chair of St. Peter

When we got back, she was, naturally, no longer in or near the chair where we had left her. We assumed that she had gotten tired of waiting for us in the interminable 10 minutes we had spent looking at crowns, rings, and gold-encrusted shepherd's staffs, so we looked in the neighboring chapels since she could not possibly have gone far on those weary feet.  When that proved fruitless, I came up with a plan: "Let's split up - you take the baldacchino, nave, and north aisle, and I'll search the narthex, Bernini's Cathedra Petri,  and the south aisle.  Meet back here in 45 minutes."  My husband glazed over on me, "I'll look outside."

After a half-hour of sifting through every gray-haired, short, support-stockinged elderly European woman, I was frantic.  My husband, well acquainted with his mother's whims, squinted his eyes, bared his teeth, and announced, "I bet she's home."  It took us another half hour to confirm this after a search for a payphone and place to buy the gettoni phone tokens used in place of legal tender for the purpose of aggravating anyone with an actual emergency.

When my mother-in-law answered the phone at home, she was unapologetic.  She was defiant: she had gotten tired of waiting for us and couldn't remember where we had parked the car, so she had exited the premises, cut across the piazza, and hopped on the #23 bus.  I don't think it bothered her in the least that she never actually saw the baldacchino or Bernini's Cathedra Petri - she had seen quite enough.  God rest her wonderful soul.

per Edda, con affetto



Enjoy this tour of the Basilica without leaving your chair

Art Un-appreciation

Ever since I was a little girl it was my great desire to see the cathedrals and museums of Italy.  My tiny little white Catholic Missal had tiny little pictures of St Peter's Cathedral in Rome, The Shroud of Turin, The Pieta'; my young Catholic mind formulated my own bucket list that ended up changing the direction of my life once I finally got to Rome and met my future husband. 

My first trip to Europe was the summer before my junior year in college with one sister and two friends, and I carefully orchestrated our itinerary knowing full well that the others would go along with my program as long as I kept us close to pastry shops and the occasional McDonald's.  We saw the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Louvre in Paris, The Vatican Museums in Rome, The Uffizi in Florence - I even threw in a deviation from our route just to see a Michelangelo sculpture in Bruges (no regrets there - Bruges is a beautiful city with excellent pastries.)

After we were married and before children we took several trips abroad where my husband tolerated my museum and church hauntings like an obedient newlywed: quietly and three steps behind me.  Like most Romans, he had seen very little of the wonders of his own city and I enthusiastically introduced him to its treasures, often accompanied by his mother or sister who also had minimal knowledge of Rome's attractions.

When we had children we were fortunate to spend a lot of time in Rome and I slowly, so as not to overwhelm them, introduced them to the Masters and their works; The Capitoline Museums in Rome were much smaller than The Vatican, so we started there, the three boys enjoying the Greek sculptures with snarling, wrestling lions, or the magnificent bronze Marcus Aurelius on horseback.  They were much older before I attempted The Sistine Chapel with them, hiring a private guide from an American tour company.  Unfortunately, my husband was with us for that five-hour tour, and his eye rolling and feet dragging was not helping me to keep the troops in good spirits. I think that's when it all started to fall apart.

How is it that a man who can spend 4 days on the beaches of Normandy studying every bayonet, SS helmet, grenade, parachute, and even, by god, the consistency of the grains of sand on Omaha Beach, how is it, I ask, that this man can ignore a Holy Family by Raphael?  Which wouldn't be so bad if he hadn't gotten to the children. 

On a trip to Florence with our friends, the Pates, we were fortunate enough to acquire tickets to the Uffizi Galleries. (Actually, they were fortunate that I had pre-paid 14 euros a pop for line-cutting reservations.)  Oh, the Uffizi!  Arguably the finest collection of Renaissance art in the universe, and I had only been there once, many, many years prior.  Imagine the fortune of my family and the Pates to have me as their guide - I had studied the floor plan the night before and knew precisely which rooms to visit for the greatest and most famous works - to attempt it all in one visit would be overwhelming and exhausting.  I would show them Leonardo's Annunciation, Michelangelo's Doni Tondo, Caravaggio's Bacchus, and, the magnificent Birth of Venus by Botticelli - I knew the route in my head and was able to maneuver around the slowpoke couples and shuffling tour groups, pointing hither and yon and speaking with authority on composition, lighting, allegory.  I was brilliant! until the point at which I lost control of my group as my husband and youngest son, exceeding the speed limit, got ahead of us by three or four rooms.

I sent a scout ahead to recover the troops, but she came back only with my son, who had a message from his father:  "We're tired and we're going back to the hotel."  I lay in wait, knowing that the coward would have to retrace his steps right through my present position in order to negotiate a successful evacuation.  Once in front of me, he unflinchingly repeated his plan.  I pleaded: "But you haven't seen The Birth of Venus!"  He didn't care who was getting birthed - he was going to take a nap. I insulted him: "You can spend the rest of your life completely devoid of culture and class, but the boy stays!" He shrugged, raised his eyebrows at my son, and said, "C'mon, let's go."  And so, they did. The Pates, terrified, remained.

The next day was our last in Florence, and although I had seen Michelangelo's David at the Accademia twice before, I knew it was worth visiting again. I was, however, no longer interested in casting pearls to the proverbial swine, so I mentioned that I would be going even if no one came with me.  Everyone was pretty tired, naturally, so when they asked me if the Accademia was a) nearby, and b) small, square-footage-wise, I made no attempt to convince them to come. Well, they said, since there was nothing better to do, so we all went to see the wonder that is Michelangelo's David.  Best thing they saw in all of Florence was the final vote, but some of them never saw The Birth of Venus.

Works at the Uffizi Gallery
Visit Florence
Capitoline Museums, Rome

San Gimignano: Torture and Hot Chocolate

It usually takes an embarassing tongue lashing from a waiter at a coffee bar or gelateria for an American traveler to Europe to learn that there are two different menu prices for the same items: one for standing and consuming your purchase, and a higher price for sitting at a table.  My husband, Claudio, nearly had the owner of one such establishment arrested after she charged us table price for eight hot chocolates when we were clearly drinking them in an upright position, but that was at the end of our short but eventful trip to San Gimignano....

On the day after Christmas we were traveling in a van with our friends, Nancy, John, and their two daughters, from Rome to Florence, by way of San Gimignano.  I had visited the famous city of towers years earlier with a friend and had enjoyed it so much that I put it on our itinerary for a quick visit.

Because of the town's history of invasions in the middle ages, its residents, in the interest of protection,  built tower fortresses around their homes.  These towers became a symbol of a family's wealth which was  ostentatiously displayed by the height of its tower. Today fourteen of the original 72 towers remain, giving the town a dramatic silhouette visible from miles around.  San Gimignano is a charming and unique town to visit, and well worth adding an extra half-day to your itinerary,  but I would be lying if I said that it had been the allure of the towers that motivated my return.

The Museum of Torture and The Museum of the Death Penalty are the true reason I had to go back to San Gimignano and I had piqued the interest of my husband and sons by telling them about my experience there. ( "Experience" is a more accurate description than "visit."  You visit the Louvre.  This place will leave a permanent impression on your psyche.)  The collections are comprised of authentic instruments, contraptions, and machines used from the Middle Ages up until the 20th century to coerce citizens into compliance or punish them for their transgressions.  (Some barbaric place called Alabama used a wooden seat hooked up to a power source to punish their criminals, so if you've never seen an electric chair stateside, you can enjoy one here.) Interestingly, yet not surprisingly, most of these methods were applied by members of the clergy to enforce Christianity on heathens or to punish bad Christians for veering off-road.  Remember the Inquisition from your World History class?

How many different kinds of instruments of torture can there be, you may ask? As many as they needed to get the point across, I suppose.  You're already familiar with a few: The Iron Maiden, The Rack, The Garotte; but if you were to think outside the box like some of these evil little monks, (no, don't!) you still wouldn't come up with The Pear, The Claw, or The Spike Chair.  I will leave it to you to research these further, if you dare, but suffice it to say that they really knew how to hurt a guy, or gal, and a slow, days-long, tortuous death was the objective.

So what did I find so delightful about this place, and how did my family and friends enjoy their "experience?"  To be truthful, the vote was split, but no matter how frightening or diabolical these exhibits are, most people are fascinated by the macabre and while we moved through the museums we invented a game of guessing how each instrument had been used.  It gets easier, actually, and a simple iron spike looked pretty obviously like the disemboweler that it was, but Nancy felt the need to stick her finger over the point before reading the descriptive sign.  ("Do you know where that's been, Nancy?")

By the time we had finished with the two museums we were tired and cold, and a quick stop at a coffee bar for a hot chocolate seemed simple enough.  But we did not sit down!, except maybe Nancy to rest for a quick second, and to have treated us like naive tourists when there was a scrappy Roman in the group was very short-sighted on the part of the owner.  Call it her lucky day, or her smart move at refunding our money, but the police were never called and we made it to Florence that night no worse for the wear.  It's been a few years and we're all on speaking terms again, but I won't apologize for providing everyone with a good cocktail party story; inappropriate as it may be to tell, it's a great ice-breaker.

Museum of Torture