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_1.jpg.1 "San Luigi dei Francesi")
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| Photo: Joel, Camera: Justin |
| San Luigi dei Francesi |
| We started off our day with Judy’s short presentation on the church San Luigi dei Francesi underneath the wary eye of the machine gun totting carbineri guarding the senate house next door.
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| San Luigi dei Francesi #2 |
| Next Angela began her long presentation on the painter, Caravaggio, Peter is enthralled. Supposedly he killed a man or a tennis match and lived his life afterwards on the run. From her we head inside the church. |
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| St. Mathew and the Angel |
| Angela continues her presentation in front of Caravaggio’s most famous pieces in San Luigi dei Francesi. The natural light is so dim it is almost impossible to see anything and the artificial lights require change to run. |
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| Piazza del Popolo |
| We put Angela’s presentation on hold and head off for another church with some Caravaggio paintings, San Maria del Popolo which is directly to the right of the old Northern entrance to the city. |
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| Our Long Walk |
| If that last picture didn’t make it seem liked we walked a long way this is the view behind us. We started at the end of the street in the middle of the picture. |
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| San Maria del Popolo |
| Justin gives his short presentation on the steps of San Maria del Popolo. Supposedly the church used to be next to an oak tree haunted by Nero’s ghost until it was chopped down and burned. We head inside to finish off Justin’s and then Angela’s talk, but we need to be extra quiet as mass is going on inside. |
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| Excommunication! Well not really but it felt like it. |
| We manage to finish Justin’s presentation inside the church but when we start to head over to the Caravaggio’s paintings suddenly the priest giving mass stops and starts yelling at us in Italian. Most of us freeze briefly before calmly turning around and walking the length of the church in an embarrassed frenzy. I snap this picture from the hip while we leave. |
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| Is Everybody Still Alive? |
| We regroup outside and confirm that we really weren’t that noisy. Oh well, we shake it off as best we can.
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| A Pretend Trip Though the Church |
| While we finish Angela’s talk from outside Lisa practices being a picture frame. About the same time that Angela finishes Shawn comes out and informs us that mass is over and we can sneak back into the church.
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| The Conversion of St. Paul |
| Ah, we can see Caravaggio’s masterpiece at last.
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| Another Long Walk |
| Another long walk back, retracing our steps to the end of this street and then to Piazza Navona.
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| Piazza Navona |
| Nina gives her long presentation on the history of the Piazza and Bernini’s Four Rivers Fountain. Thankfully there are less church sanctioned interruptions during this presentation. Apparently the reason this piazza is oval instead of square is because it used to be an ancient Roman racetrack, Nina shows us some of the ruins.
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| The Four Rivers Fountain |
| Nina rounds off her talk with a look at Bernini’s Four Rivers Fountain located in the very center of the piazza. Each river is from a different continent and is portrayed by a river god, this one is the Danube for Europe and he is busy holding up the papal crest. After this presentation we head over a block to hear Sariah’s short presentation on talking statues.
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| A Quick Chat with Pasquale |
| This is the famed talking statue named Pasquale. Sariah tells us that this is one of several statues in Rome that “talk” in the form of political messages posted on the statue. Sariah asks us to write our own little political messages at the end of the presentation but I was too tired and hungry to write anything useful. This ended the group part of the day and we all headed out to do our own things now. |
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| The Aftermath of Lunch |
| Hmmm… Justin and I are so full after our big steaks that we cooked for lunch, but before we could fall asleep Min-ahn jumps in and gets Justin, Patricia and me to go to some Christian catacombs with her.
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| Waiting for Bones |
| After catching a cab across town we bought tickets for the tour and ended up waiting out on the patio. Patricia decides to take our picture so I take hers. Finally we get word that the tour will begin.
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| Stairs to the Underworld |
| Down we go.
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| Increasing Darkness |
| The tension builds.
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| Secret Picture #1 |
| Absolutely no photography is allowed in the catacombs—so I have to take my pictures from the hip, and very stealthily. The place is dank and dark and awesomely creepy. The catacombs are dug out from tufa rock and are lined with little rectangular coves where bodies used to be stored. The guide gets a kick out of telling Min-ahn that the reason that there aren’t any bones left in one tomb is that rats ate them. I kind of want to be able to explore but we have to go up after the tour is done.
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| Blurry Tour Guide |
| This is one of two blurry pictures of our almost creepy tour guide. Somehow we all came to like this guy… kind of.
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| More Adventures |
| Patricia and I head out on our own to visit a few sites that Shawn has told us to, but this means I’ll miss my appointment with Shawn. Sorry Shawn.
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| Santa Prassede |
| I love this tiling, you see it everywhere but I can’t get over it.
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| Santa Prassede #2 |
| Patricia takes a picture of a golden ceiling mosaic and mother Mary peeks over her head.
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| Moses at San Pietro |
| Next Patricia and I head over to see Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses. Patricia can’t get over how fluffy his beard looks.
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| The Roman Forum |
| On our way back we walk through the Roman Forum and catch a rainbow in the distance.
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| RC |
| Ah, back home at the Rome Center—time to get some work done.
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In a reckless disregard for the template I've made today's diary a slideshow. A brief overview though, Five! that's right Five! presentations in the morning followed by a free afternoon. Many of us spent this afternoon catching up on sites that we needed to visit for assignments, I know I did. I think we all crammed as much into this day as we could because the end is so close.
_1.jpg/pub_image_view.html "San Luigi dei Francesi")
