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090204, The first day of churches |
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written
by hlc / 09.03.2004 |
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Itinerary |
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We started off today with riding the bus to Santa Maria Maggiore. We met at 10:00am instead of 9:00am for a little extra sleep, thanks to Lisa. This was our first big day of visiting churches; we saw three total. Kara started our day off giving an interesting presentation about pilgrimages. She told us the reasons why early Christians made pilgrimages to the various churches and what role this played in the survival of the churches. Relics, remains of Christian saints, were housed in churches and were one of the main reasons for the popularity of pilgrimages. Evan then gave a short introduction to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. This basilica is one of the most famous in Rome. The church is beautiful with an ornate ceiling, many side chapels, and a beautiful apse.
We took about a ten-minute walk to our next church,
Basilica did Santa Prassede where Shane gave us some background information on the church and detailed explanations about some of the art in the church. The church is not nearly as big as S. Maria Maggiore, but is still ornate and beautiful. The outlining of the mosaics is something we had not seen before with the figures being outlined in colorful glass pieces rather then just black lines. In S. Prassede we spent some time in one of the side rooms where Lauren gave an introduction to relics and the importance they played in early Christian times.
For our last portion of art history we took a short walk to Santa Pudenziana. Again, Shane gave us some interesting background information on the church. This church has the oldest decorated Christian apse. The keeper of this church took our group on a special tour upstairs to the second level of the church where we could see the apse mosaic and frescoes up close.
After art history we had Italian class with Sabrina from 2-4. We learned about the verb “fare,” to do or to make in Italian. For the last half an hour of class Sabrina took us to her favorite gelateria, Alberto Pica. One of the unique and favorite flavors there is a cinnamon and rice flavor that tastes like rice pudding.
At 6 we had sociology class with Professors Hector and Friedman. We learned about education and the role this plays in social order; the idea being that the more educated one is the more social order will exist. We also had an interesting lecture about Italian Universities, which are free and very overcrowded. Since the universities are free and there is no admission process (they are open up to anyone), this lowers the quality of education and attention that the universities provide to students. Professors are only required to spend 52 hours a year teaching, departments are run by only one professor, and libraries are essentially inaccessible due to the number of students attending school.
This concludes our longest day of class, but now we have a long weekend ahead of us.
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Highlights |
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I was stunned with the beauty of Santa Maria Maggiore. It seemed that one could spend hours in there just looking at all the beautiful mosaics, statues, and decorations. The apse is amazing and the stained glass window in the back of the church is stunning with the light shining through into the church. In one of the side chapels a service was being preformed and I enjoyed watching the mass for a bit with two priests in beautiful green vestments.
In Santa Prassede we saw a piece of the block that Jesus was tied to when his persecutors flogged him; relics are morbid and intriguing at the same time. The side room that contained this relic was amazing with beautiful gold mosaic work. The detail is amazing.
The special group tour upstairs in S. Pudenziana was a privilege for our group. The church manager could only take ten of us at a time up there because the space was so small. We also saw some really rare frescoes from the 11th century; many haven’t survived from such an early time period.
At the gelateria, Alberto gave everyone in our class a fun key chain that is in the shape of a colorful ice cream cone and has the name and phone number of the gelateria. He said that we had been going there so frequently that he wanted to give us a little token.
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Images |
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Pictures coming soon...hopefully by Monday! The computer is being fussy!
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