Borghese Gallery (Rome, Italy)

Posted on 26 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Borghese Gallery (Galleria Borghese)

The Galleria Borghese (English: Borghese Gallery), an art gallery housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana, houses the largest collection of private art in the world – a substantial part of the Borghese collection of paintings, sculpture and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (reign 1605–1621), an early patron of Bernini and an avid collector of works by Caravaggio.

Museum lobby

Borghese used it as a villa suburbana, a party villa at the edge of Rome. The collection was originally housed in the cardinal’s residence near St Peter’s but, in the 1620s, he had it transferred to the Casino Borghese, the central building of his new villa just outside Porta Pinciana. Here are some historical trivia regarding the villa:

The villa was built between 1613 and 1614 by the architectFlaminio Ponzio and Vasanzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese himself.
About 1775, Prince PrinceMarcantonio IV Borghese added much of the lavish Neo-Classical décor. Under the guidance of the architect Antonio Asprucci, the now-outdated tapestry and leather hangings were replaced, the Casina was renovated and the Borghese sculptures and antiquities were restaged in a thematic new ordering that celebrated the Borghese position in Rome.
In 1808, PrinceCamillo Borghese, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, was forced to sell the Borghese Roman sculptures and antiquities to the Emperor.
In 1902, the entire Borghese estate and surrounding gardens and parkland were eventually sold to the Italian government.
The late 18th century rehabilitation of the much-visited villa as a genuinely public museum was the subject of an 2000 exhibition at theGetty Research Institute, Los Angeles, spurred by the Getty’s acquisition of 54 drawings related to the project.

The important collection of paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael and Titian, as well as some sensational sculptures by Bernini and Canova are arranged around 20 decorated rooms over two floors.

Trompe l’oeil ceiling fresco by the Sicilian artist Mariano Rossi

The ground floor gallery is mainly dedicated to Classical antiquities of the 1st–3rd centuries AD, Classical and Neo-Classical sculpture, intricate Roman floor mosaics (including a famous 320–30 AD mosaic of gladiators found on the Borghese estate at Torrenova, on the Via Casilina outside Rome, in 1834) and over-the-top frescoes. Its decorative scheme includes a trompe l’oeil ceiling fresco in the first room (or Salone), by the Sicilian artist Mariano Rossi that makes such good use of foreshortening so much so that it appears almost three-dimensional.The upper floor houses the pinacoteca (picture gallery), a snapshot of Renaissance art.

Pinacoteca (picture gallery)

The entrance hall is decorated with 4th-century floor mosaics of fighting gladiators and a 2nd-century Satiro Combattente (Fighting Satyr). High on the wall is the Marco Curzio a Cavallo, a gravity-defying bas-relief, by Pietro Bernini (Gian Lorenzo’s father), of a horse and rider falling into the void.

Antonio Canova's Venere vincitrice (Victorious Venus or Venus Victrix, 1805–08), a daring depiction of Paolina Bonaparte Borghese, Napoleon's sister

Antonio Canova’s Venere vincitrice (Victorious Venus or Venus Victrix, 1805–08), a daring depiction of Pauline Bonaparte Borghese, Napoleon’s sister

Sala I is centered on Antonio Canova’s Venere vincitrice (Victorious Venus or Venus Victrix, 1805–08), a daring depiction of Pauline Bonaparte Borghese, Napoleon’s sister, reclining topless. It is the most famous piece in the museum and virtually its symbol.

Apollo Chasing Daphne (Gian Lorenzo Bernini)

Kyle and Grace in front of statue of Apollo and Daphne (Gian Lorenzo Bernini)

Gian Lorenzo Bernini‘s spectacular output of secular sculpture of flamboyant depictions of pagan myths also steal the show. In the swirling Apollo e Dafne (Apollo and Daphne, 1622–25, created by Bernini at the tender age of 24 for the Scipione Borghese) in Sala III, Daphne’s hands morph into leaves, while in the dynamic Ratto di Proserpina (Rape of Proserpine, 1621–22) in Sala IV, Pluto’s hand presses into the seemingly soft flesh of Persephone’s thigh.

Rape of Proserpine (Gian Lorenzo Bernini)

All are considered seminal works of Baroque sculpture. Other works include Goat Amalthea with Infant Jupiter and Faun (1615), David (1623) and Aeneas, Anchises & Ascanius (1618–19).

Author in front of statue of Aeneas, Anchises & Ascanius

Sala VIII (Sala de Sileno) is dominated by works by Caravaggio including the dissipated-looking Bacchino Malato (Young Sick Bacchus; 1592–95), the strangely beautiful La Madonna dei Palafenieri (Madonna with Serpent; 1605–06) and San Giovanni Battista (St John the Baptist; 1609–10), probably Caravaggio’s last work.

David (Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1623)

There’s also the much-loved Ragazzo col Canestro di Frutta (Boy with a Basket of Fruit, 1593–95), St Jerome Writing (1606), and the dramatic Davide con la Testa di Golia (David with the Head of Goliath; 1609–10, Goliath’s severed head is said to be a self-portrait sent to the Pope to beg for forgiveness after Caravaggio was accused of murder).

Fragment of mosaics

Upstairs, the pinacoteca displays Raphael’s extraordinary La Deposizione di Cristo (Entombment of Christ, 1507) in Sala IX, and his Dama con Liocorno (Lady with a Unicorn; 1506). In the same room is Fra Bartolomeo’s superb Adorazione del Bambino (Adoration of the Christ Child; 1495) and Perugino’s Madonna con Bambino (Madonna and Child; first quarter of the 16th century).

Leda and the Swan (followers of Leonardo da Vinci)

Madonna and Child (Giovanni Battista Sassoferrato)

Other highlights include Correggio’s erotic Danae (1530–31) in Sala X, Bernini’s self-portraits in Sala XIV, and Titian‘s early masterpiece, Amor Sacro e Amor Profano (Sacred and Profane Love; 1514) in Sala XX.

Sleeping Venus (Girolamo da Treviso il Giovane)

The Deposition (Peter Paul Rubens)

There are also works by Peter Paul Rubens and Federico Barocci. In addition, several portrait busts are included in the gallery, including one of Pope Paul V, and two portraits of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1632, the second portrait was produced after the a large crack was discovered in the marble of the first version during its creation).

Mourning the Dead Christ (Ortolano)

Borghese Gallery: Piazzale del Museo Borghese, 5, 00197 Rome, Italy. Tel: +39 06 841 3979 and +39 06 32810. Open Mondays to Fridays, 9 AM – 6 PM, Saturdays, 9 AM – 1 PM. Website: www.galleriaborghese.it. Admission: € 11.00. To limit numbers, visitors are admitted at two-hourly intervals, so you’ll need to pre-book your ticket and get an entry time.

How to Get There: Pinciana- Museo Borghese (Bus 52, 53, 83, 92, 217, 360, 910)

Villa d’Este – Gardens (Tivoli, Italy)

Posted on 26 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

The Garden of Villa d’Este

The palatial setting of Villa d’Este is surrounded by a spectacular terraced garden, in the late-Renaissance Mannerist and Baroque style, which took advantage of the dramatic slope but required innovations in bringing a sufficient water supply, which was employed in cascades, water tanks, troughs and pools, water jets and impressive concentration of fountains, water games. This masterpiece of the Italian Garden is included in the UNESCO world heritage list.

Descending into the garden from the villa

Reviving Roman techniques of hydraulic engineering to supply water to a sequence of fountains, the cardinal created a fantasy garden whose architectural elements and water features had an enormous influence on European landscape design and their garden planning and water features such as fountains, nymphs, grottoes, plays of water and music were much copied in the next two centuries, in European gardens from Portugal to Poland to St. Petersburg. The result is one of the series of great 17th century villas with water-play structures in the hills surrounding the Roman Campagna, such as the Villas Aldobrandini and Torlonia in Frascati; the Villa Lante and the Villa Farnese at Caprarola.

Strolling the gardens

Painter, architect, archaeologist and Classical scholar Pirro Ligorio was commissioned to lay out the gardens for the villa, with the assistance of Tommaso Chiruchi (he had worked on the fountains at Villa Lante) of Bologna, one of the most skilled hydraulic engineers of the sixteenth century. In the technical designs for the fountains, Chiruchi was assisted by Claude Venard, a Frenchman who was a manufacturer of hydraulic organs.
From 1605 Cardinal Alessandro d’Estegave the go-ahead to a new progam of interventions. He restored and repaired the vegetation and the waterworks and created a new series of innovations to the layout of the garden and the decorations of the fountains.
From 1660 – 61, works on 2 fountains were carried out involving Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
In the eighteenth century the villa and its gardens passed to the House of Habsburg after Ercole III d’Este bequeathed it to his daughter Maria Beatrice, married to Grand Duke Ferdinand of Habsburg. The gardens were slowly abandoned and The hydraulics fell into disuse and ruin, and many of the collection of ancient sculptures, enlarged under Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, were disassembled and scattered to other sites. This picturesque state of decay continued, without interruption, until the middle of the 19^th century. It was recorded by Carl Blechen and other painters.
In 1851, Cardinal Gustav von Hohelohe, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst, obtained the villa, in enfiteusi, from the Dukes of Modena. To pull the complex back from its state of ruin, he launched a series of works. Between 1867 and 1882, the villa once again became a cultural point of reference.

The garden has been celebrated in poetry, painting and music:

The musician Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886), who evoked the garden in his Les Jeux d’Eaux à la Villa d’Este and composed Giochi d’acqua a Villa d’Este for piano while a guest here, gave one of his last concerts here in 1879.
Jean Garrigue‘s volume of poems A Water Walk by Villa d’Este (1959) continues a long tradition of poetry inspired by the gardens.
Kenneth Anger filmed Eaux d’artifice among the water features of the garden.

Villa d’Este’s fame and glory as one of the finest gardens of the Renaissance was established by its extraordinary system of fountains. It has 51 fountains and nymphaeums, 398 spouts, 364 water jets, 64 waterfalls and 220 basins, all fed by 875 m. of canals, channels and cascades, and all working entirely by the force of gravity, without pumps.

The gardens, now part of the Grandi Giardini Italiani, fall away in a series of terraces. The garden plan is laid out on a central axis with subsidiary cross-axes, refreshed by some 500 jets in fountains, pools and water troughs. Originally supplied with water by the Rivellese spring (which supplied a cistern under the villa’s courtyard), it is now supplied with water by the nearby Aniene River, which is partly diverted through the town, a distance of a kilometer.

The Vialone with the Cenacolo in the background

The Vialone, a large, 200 m. long terrace that lies between the villa and the gardens, was constructed between 1568 and 1569. It has a panoramic view of the gardens and countryside beyond and the Cardinals used the space for fireworks, games, spectacles and festivities. Originally shaded by two rows of elm trees (except for the space directly in front of the villa, left empty to preserve the view), the terrace is enclosed at one end by the Fountain of Europa and, at the other, by the Cenacolo, an immense loggia and belvedere, in the form of a triumphal arch, that provided shade beneath in summer, as well as commanding viewpoints of the scenery. Its interior, originally intended to be decorated with stucco decoration, gilding and frescoes, was never finished.

The double loggia in the center of the terrace, made with travertine stone from 1566–1577, is attached to the facade of the villa. Two stairways provide access to the ceremonial salons on the lower floor. Its upper level, created as a terrace for the Cardinal’s apartments, contains a Nymphaeum (grotto) where the Fountain of Leda is located. The original statuary of the fountain, depicting Jupiter and Leda transformed into a swan and four children (Elena, Clytemnestra, Castor and Pollux), was sold in the 18th century and is now in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. The original fountain featured a novel hydraulic trick – water spouting from a vase held by Leda struck a metal disk, causing flashes of light to reflect on the walls of the grotto. The statuary has been replaced by headless statue of Minerva, found in the garden of the Palazzo Manni in Tivoli.

The Fountain of the Tripod, a copy (the original is now in the Louvre) of an ancient Roman fountain in the center of the Vialone, has only been there since 1930. It consists of a marble basin supported by a central column and three pilasters. The Fountain of the Sea Horses, the original fountain on the site, was moved, by Ippolito, from Hadrian’s Villa to his garden. It is now in the Vatican Museum.

The Fountain of Europa, at the northeast end at the top of the garden, was begun by Ippolito but was not finished until 1671. Its design, copying that of the Grand Loggia, consists of a triumphal arch with two orders (Corinthian and Doric) of columns. The large empty niche in the center once held a sculpture Europa Embracing the Bull which is now in the VIlla Albani in Rome.

From Fountain of the Tripod, two ramps lead down to the upper garden and, at either end, there are symmetrical double flights of stairs. The shaded Cardinal’s Walk, attached to the retaining wall of the terrace, leads from one side of the garden to the other, passing by several grottos which are built into the retaining wall. The Grotto of Igea and Aesculpius, at the southeast end of the walk, just below the Fountain of Europa, is decorated with tartar flakes, mosaics and colored fragments of sea shells, and a small portion of the original fresco. It originally held two statues. The statue of Aesculpius, the God of Medicine, is now found in the Louvre while that of Igea, the daughter of Auesculpius and the Goddess of Healing, is now in the Vatican Museum.

The Loggia of Pandora, in the middle of the Cardinal’s Walk, just below the center of the Villa, is covered, with arcades looking out at the garden. It contains a nymphaeum built into the wall and, originally, was decorated with mosaics and with two statues of Minerva and a statue of Pandora carrying a vase (actually a concealed fountain pouring out water) of water (symbolizing the evils of the world). The statues were sold in the 18th century. The staue of Pandora and one of the Minervas are now in the Capitoline Museum. In the 19th century, the nymphaeum was converted into a Christian chapel, a favorite place of the composer Franz Liszt, who dedicated two pieces of music to the chapel.

Fontana del Bicchierone (Fountain of the Great Cup)

The Fountain of the Bicchierone, one of two fountains created for the villa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, was made between 1660 and 1661 on a commission from Cardinal Rinaldo I d’Este. The basin of the fountain, in the form of a large shell which reaches up to the level of the terrace, has a toothed Bicchierone (cup or chalice) in the center, from which water sprays upwards. Bernini supervised the building of the fountain and, following its inauguration in May 1661, had the height of the spouting water reduced, to avoid blocking the view from the Loggia of Pandora. Though not part of the original design of the garden, the fountain became a link between the architecture of the palace and the garden.

Fontana del Bicchierone (Fountain of the Great Cup)

The Loggetta of the Cardinal, a small ballustraded terrace between the Fountain of the Biccherone and the garden, was said to be the Cardinal’s favorite spot for reading and discussing poetry and art, and watching the construction of the garden around him. Surrounded by high laurel hedges and stone benches, it originally had a large statue (now found in the Louvre), installed shortly after the Cardinal’s death, of Hercules with the boy Achilles in his arms, overlooking the garden below. It was one of three statues of Hercules, in central positions along the central axis, that were all visible when seen from the bottom the garden, aligned with the loggia of the villa at the top.

The Grotto of Diana, at the end of the Cardinal’s Walk, below the Gran Loggia, is a large underground vaulted chamber decorated from 1570-72 by Paolo Caladrino. It is completely covered with mosaics of mythological scenes, with images of fish, dragons, dolphins, pelicans and other animals, as well as the eagles and apples of the d’Este family. The rustic fountain, its central feature, has a statue of the goddess Diana in a large niche decorated with stucco reliefs of landscapes, the sea and a ship. Sold in the 18th century, all of these statues are now in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. Some of the original 16th century majolica floor tiles can still be seen.

A walkway, below the Loggetta of the Cardinal, traverses the garden and passes by three grottoes. The Grotto of Hercules, in the center, is covered by the Loggetta of the Cardinal. Beneath it is a cistern and some of the hydraulic machinery for the fountains below. The grotto once had stucco reliefs of either animals or the labors of Hercules and a statue of Hercules in repose (now in the Vatican Museum).

Mask spouting water in the Grotto of Pomona

The Grotto of Pomona, similar in design to the Grotto of Hercules, has some of its original mosaic decoration still visible. The water from a white marble mask (found when the fountain was restored in 2002) pours into a fountain.

Fontana dell’Ovato (Oval Fountain)

The Oval Fountain (Fontana dell’Ovato) one of the first and among the most famous fountains in the garden, was designed by Pirro Ligorio as a water theater, spraying water in variety of forms. Begun in 1565 and finished in 1570, it was made by fountain engineers Tomasso de Como and Curzio Maccarono, with sculpture by Raffaello Sangallo. A massive stone basin, set against the semicircular back wall, cascades water into the fountain and sprays it into the air while water jets into the basin, from vases in the hands of statues of Nereids, and also sprays in fan shapes from vases in niches in the semicircular wall behind the fountain.

An artificial mountain, rising above the fountain, symbolizes the Tiburtine landscape. The mountain is pierced by three grottoes, each pouring forth water, and is decorated with statues representing the Sibyl Albunesa with her son Melicerte, by Gillis van den Vliete (1568), and statues representing rivers Erculaneo and Anio, by Giovanni Malanca (1566), all of which pour water into the Oval Fountain.

An upper walkway, above the fountain, leads past past the ring of basins and cascades. The Grotto of Venus, the fountain’s own grotto, was designed by Pirro Ligorio and built in 1565–68. It served as a meeting place for guests on hot summer days. A figure of Venus, similar to the Capitoline Venus, and two putti , the original statues of the grotto, are no longer there but traces of the monochrome murals of grotesque figures, tiles and sculpted grotto walls still remain.

The fountain on a side wall, framed within a Doric, contains a sculpture of a sleeping nymph in a grotto guarded by d’Este heraldic eagles, with a bas-relief framed in apple boughs that links the villa to the Garden of the Hesperides.

Flanking the central axis are symmetrical double flights of stairs that lead to the next garden terrace. The Grotto of Diana, richly decorated with frescoes and pebble mosaic, is on one side. Water rom the central Fontana del Bicchierone (“Fountain of the Great Cup”), planned by Bernini in 1660, issues from a seemingly natural rock into a scrolling shell-like cup.

La Rometta (Little Rome)

To descend to the next level, there are stairs at either end. La Rometta (“the little Rome”), an elaborate fountain complex, is at the far left. The boat, with an obelisk mast, symbolizes the Tiburtina island in the Tiber, below the statue of Rome Triumphant.

Hundred Fountains

The water jets of the Hundred Fountains (Cento Fontane), on the next level, fill the full length of a long rustic trough. The Fontana dell’Ovato ends the cross-vista. A visitor may walk behind the water through the rusticated arcade of the concave nymphaeum, which is peopled by marble nymphas by Giambattista della Porta. Above the nymphaeum, the sculpture of Pegasus recalls to the visitor the fountain of Hippocrene on Parnassus, haunt of the Muses.

Hundred Fountains

The 16th-century Fontana di Diana Efesina (Fountain of Diana of Ephesus) has water flowing from her numerous breasts, symbolizing fertility and abundance, both of nature and of intellect.

Fountain of Diana of Ephesus

The central Fontana dei Draghi (Fountain of the Dragons), dominating the central perspective of the gardens, was erected for a visit in 1572 of Pope Gregory XIII whose coat-of-arms features a dragon. It unites the terrace to the next. The sound of this fountain was in contrast to a nearby Uccellario with artificial birds. Central stairs lead down a wooded slope to three rectangular fishponds set on the cross-axis at the lowest point of the gardens. It is terminated, at the right, by the water organ (now brought back into use) and Fountain of Neptune (belonging to the 20th century restorations).

Neptune Fountain

The very formal Fountain of the Owl, at the southwest part of the garden, below the Fountain of Rometta and the Fountain of Proserpina, was built between 1565 and 1569 by Giovanni del Duca, These 3 fountains have terraces connected by stairways, with nymphaeums placed beneath the terraces. Placed on a terrace surrounded by walls with niches, it crowned with the white eagles and lily symbols of the d’Este.

The Fountain of the Owl (a.k.a. Bird’s Fountain)

The fountain, covered with polychrome tiles, has the coat of arms of the d’Este, held by two angels, at the top, above the niche flanked by Ionic columns. Though the architectural elements are intact, the statues of two youths holding a goatskin which poured water into a basin held by three satyrs are missing or were destroyed. The sculpture in the niche, believed lost, was rediscovered during a renovation in 2001–02, hidden under mineral deposits and earth.

This fountain also produced music, thanks to Its ingenious automaton made by the French organ maker Luc Leclerc, installed in 1566, before the Fountain of the Organ on the other side of the garden. It featured wenty painted bronze birds placed in the niche, posed on two metal olive branches. Each bird sang an individual song, produced by piped water and air. A mechanical owl appeared, and the birds stopped singing; then, at the end of the performance, all the birds sang together. This musical feature was admired and copied in other European gardens, and functioned until the end of the 17th century. It needed constant repair due the action of the water on its delicate mechanism, and by the 19th century were completely ruined. The decorative elements of the fountain were completely restored in the 19030s, and restored again in 2001-2002, ^[21]

During the restoration work of 2001–02, the workers found some of the original mechanism that produced the bird songs, including the wind chamber, the tubes that moved the air and water, and the machinery that made the owl move. Using modern materials, Leonardo Lombardi was able to make a new version of the old machinery so the birds can sing and move again.

The series of terraces above terraces and the imposing constructions in the hanging cliffs of the “Valle gaudente” bring to mind the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world plus, the addition of water (including an aqueduct tunneling beneath the city) evokes the engineering skill of the Romans. Its landscape, art and history (which includes the important ruins of ancient villas such as the magnificent Villa Adriana) as well as a zone rich in caves and waterfalls (which display the unending battle between water and stone) is generally considered within the larger and, altogether extraordinary, context of Tivoli itself.

Fountain of the d’Este eagles

Villa d‘ Este: Piazza Trento, 5, 00019 Tivoli, RM, Italy. Tel: 0039 0412719036. Fax: 0039 0412770747. E-mail: villadestetivoli@teleart.org. Website: www.villadestetivoli.info.

Open 8.30 AM – 6.45 PM (May to August), 8:30 AM – 4 PM (January, November, December), 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM (February), 8:30 AM – 5:15 PM (March), 8:30 AM – 6:30 PM (April), 8:30 AM – 5:30 PM (October) and 8:30 AM – 6:15 PM (September). Admission: € 8.00. The visitor can take pictures without any physical contact with the cultural heritage and he cannot use either flash or tripod.

How to Get There:

Taking the blue regional COTRAL busRoma Tivoli-Via Prenestina at the bus terminal just outside Ponte Mammolo station of metro line B; the stop Largo Nazioni Unite is about 100m far from the entrance of the Villa.
Taking the urban train line FL2 (Roma-Pescara Line) from Tiburtina stationto Tivoli station (Stazione Tivoli), then, local bus CAT number 1 or 4/ to Piazza Garibaldi stop; the stop is in Tivoli’s main square in front of the Villa.

Villa d’Este – Villa (Tivoli, Italy)

Posted on 26 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

The Villa d’Este, a villa near Rome listed as a UNESCO world heritage site, is a fine example of Renaissance architecture and the Italian Renaissance garden. Since December 2014, it has been run as a State Museum by the Polo Museale del Lazio.

Villa d’Este

Here are some historical trivia regaring the villa:

The Villa d’Este was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este, son ofAlfonso I d’Este and Lucrezia Borgia; grandson of Pope Alexander VI and the appointed governor of Tivoli (from 1550) by Pope Julius III (the villa was the pope’s gift). Cardinal d’Este, after 5 failed bids for the papacy, saw to its construction from 1550 until his death in 1572, when the villa was nearing completion. He drew inspiration (and many statues and much of the marble used for construction) from the nearby Villa Adriana, the palatial retreat of Emperor Hadrian.
The villa was entirely reconstructed to plans ofpainter-architect-archeologist Pirro Ligorio and carried out under the direction of the Ferrarese architect-engineer Alberto Galvani, court architect of the Este.
The rooms of the Palace were decorated under the tutelage of the stars of the late Roman Mannerism, such as Livio Agresti (the chief painter of the ambitious internal decoration) fromForlì, Federico Zuccari, Durante Alberti, Girolamo Muziano, Cesare Nebbia and Antonio Tempesta. The work was almost complete at the time of the Cardinal’s death (1572).
Pirro Ligorio was responsible for the iconographic programs worked out in the villa’s frescos.
In the 18^th century, the lack of maintenance led to the decay of the complex and the villa and its gardens passed to theHouse of Habsburg after Ercole III d’Este bequeathed it to his daughter Maria Beatrice, married to Grand Duke Ferdinand of Habsburg. The villa and its gardens were neglected.
In 1851, Cardinal Gustav von Hohelohe, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst, obtained the villa, in enfiteusi, from the Dukes of Modena. To pull the complex back from its state of ruin, he launched a series of works. Between 1867 and 1882, the villa once again became a cultural point of reference.
After World War I, Villa d’Este was purchased for the Italian State, restored, and refurnished with paintings from the storerooms of the Galleria Nazionale, Rome.
During the 1920s, it was restored and opened to the public.
Immediately after World War II, another radical restoration was carried out to repair the damage caused by the bombing of 1944.
During the past 20 years, due to particularly unfavorable environmental conditions, the restorations have continued practically without interruption. Among these is the recent cleaning of the Organ Fountain (also the “Birdsong”).

Entrance

Here, Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este brought back to life the splendor of the courts of Ferrara, Rome and Fontainebleau. The villa is surrounded, on three sides, by a sixteenth-century courtyard sited on the former Benedictine cloister. The central main entrance leads to the Appartamento Vecchio (“Old Apartment”) made for Ippolito d’Este. Its vaulted ceilings was frescoed in secular allegories by Livio Agresti and his students, centered on the grand Sala, with its spectacular view down the main axis of the garden.

Courtyard

To the left and right are suites of rooms. The suite on the left contains Cardinal Ippolito’s’s library and his bedchamber with the chapel beyond, and the private stairs to the lower apartment, the Appartamento Nobile, which gives directly onto Pirro Ligorio’s Cenacolo (Gran Loggia) straddling the graveled terrace with a triumphal arch motif.

Cenacolo (Grand Loggia) with its triumphal arch motif

A series of highly decorated rooms, less formal than the Cardinal’s personal apartments above it, are each decorated with a specific theme, all connected to nature, mythology and water. Reached by a large ceremonial stairway that descends from the courtyard, they have high vaulted ceilings (receiving light from a series of openings to the courtyard above), are connected to each other by a long narrow corridor and were used for private moments in the life of the Cardinal; listening to music or poetry; conversation, reading and religious reflection.

Corridor

The ceiling of the corridor, decorated with late 16th century mosaics representing a pergola inhabited by colorful birds (making it seem a part of the garden) and also features three elaborate rustic fountains containing miniature grottos framed with columns and pediments.

Room of Noah

The Room of Noah, dated to 1571 (at the end of the decoration of the villa) and attributed to Girolamo Muziano (famous for scenes of Venetian landscapes), has walls covered with frescoes designed to resemble tapestries, intertwined with scenes of Classical landscapes, ruins, rustic farm houses, and other scenes covering every inch of the ceiling and walls. The major scenes portrayed are the Four Seasons, allegories of Prudence and Temperance, and the central scene of Noah with the ark shortly after its landing on Mount Ararat, making an agreement with God. A white eagle, the symbol of the d’Este, is prominently shown landing from the Ark.

Room of Moses

The next room is the Room of Moses. The fresco at the center of its ceiling shows Moses striking a rock with his rod, bringing forth water for the people of Israel, an allusion to the Cardinal who brought water to the villa’s gardens by making channels through the rock. Other panels show scenes from the life of Moses, a hydra with seven heads, the emblem of the family of Ercole I d’Este(an ancestor of Ippolito) and fantastic landscapes.

Room of Venus

The Room of Venus originally had, as its centerpiece, a large fountain (a basin of water with a classical statue of a sleeping Venus) with an artificial cliff and grotto framed in stucco. In the 19th century, the basin was removed and the Venus (removed after the death of the Cardinal) was replaced by two new statues of Peace and Religion representing a scene at the grotto of Lourdes. The original terra cotta floor, featuring the white eagle of the d’Este family, is still in place. The 17th century painting on the ceiling of angels offering flowers to Venus is the only other decoration in the room.

First Tiburtine Room

The First and Second Tiburtine Rooms both made before 1569 by a team of painters led by Cesare Nebia, both have a common plan and its decoration illustrates stories from mythology and the history of Tiburtine region (where the villa is located). The walls are covered with painted architectural elements (with the spaces between are filled with floral designs, medals, masks and other insignia), including columns and doors and elaborate painted moldings and sculptural elements.

Second Tiburtine Room

Illustrated in the Second Tiburtine Room is the story of the Tiburtine Sibyl, its main theme, plus the legend of King Annius (the Aniene River, which provides the water for the fountains of the villa, takes his name from him). The Sibyl, King Annius and the personification of the Aniene River, along with the Triumph of Apollo, all appear in the frescoes of the room.

Wall painting detail at First Tiburtine Room

The frescoes of the First Tiburtine Room illustrates the story of three legendary Greek brothers (Tiburtus, Coras and Catillus) who defeated the Sicels, an Italic tribe, and built a new city, Tibur (now Tivoli). Their battle, as well as other events in the founding of the region, is illustrated in the central fresco of the ceiling. The decoration of the room also includes the Tenth Labor of Hercules as well as pairs of gods and goddesses (Vulcan and Venus; Jupiter and Juno; Apollo with Diana; and Bacchus with Circe) in painted niches. On the wall is an illustration of the oval fountain, which Ippolito was building at the time the room was decorated.

Salon of the Fountain

The Salon of the Fountain, designed and made between 1565 and 1570, probably by Girolamo Muziano and his team of artists, was used by Cardinal Ippolito as a reception room for guests, who had just arrived through the garden below, and for concerts and other artistic events. A wall fountain, its central element, was finished in 1568 by Paolo Calandrino. Its basin rests on two stone dolphins. The fountain is covered with multicolored ceramics and sculpture, encrusted with pieces of glass, seashells and precious stones, and is crowned by the white eagle of the d’Este family.

The fountain at the Salon of the Fountain

The central niche has reliefs depicting the fountain, the Tiburtine acropolis and the Temple of the Sibyl. On the other walls are images of the house and unfinished garden and fountains, and a small illustration, on the opposite wall, from the fountain of Ippolito’s villa (now a residence of the Pope) on the Quirinal Hill in Rome. The ceiling paintings are devoted to scenes of mythology with each corner having portraits of a different gods and goddesses (tradition says that the painting of Mercury is a self-portrait of Muziano).

Ceiling fresco at Salon of the Fountain

The central fresco on the ceiling, modeled after a similar work by Raphael in the Loggia of Psyche in the Villa Farnesina, depicts the Synod of the Gods, with Jupiter in the center surrounded by all the gods of Olympus. The hall connects with the loggia, and from there a stairway descends to the garden.

Room of Hercules

The Room of Hercules, dating to 1565–66, was also one by Muziano. The ceiling paintings depict eight of the labors of Hercules, surrounded by depictions of landscapes, ancient architecture, and the graces and the virtues. The ceiling’s central painting shows Hercules being welcomed into Olympus by the gods.

Ceiling fresco of Hercules welcomed to Olympus

The Room of the Nobility, done by Federico Zuccari and his team of painters, has a central ceiling fresco depicting “Nobility on the throne between Liberality and Generosity.” The decoration on the walls includes paintings of busts of Classical philosophers (Diogenes , Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, etc.), the Graces and Virtues, and Diana of Ephesus (the goddess of Fertility).

Room of the Nobility

The Room of Glory, completed between 1566 and 1577 by Federico Zuccari and eight assistants, with painted illusions of doors, windows, tapestries, sculptures, and of everyday objects used by the Cardinal, is a masterpiece of Roman Mannerist painting. The Allegory of Glory, the central painting of the ceiling, has been lost but there are allegorical depictions of the Virtues, the Four Seasons, and of Religion, Magnanimity, Fortune and Time.

Room of Glory

The Hunting Room, built later than the other rooms (from the end of the 16th or beginning the 17th century), is in a different style. It features hunting scenes, rural landscapes, hunting trophie and, oddly, scenes of naval battles. The “Snail Stairway,” built with travertine stone, descends to the garden. Originally built to access a pallacorda (an ancestor of tennis) court which Ippolito imported into Italy from the French Court, the space where the court was located now houses the cafeteria and bookstore.

Hunting Room

The Villa’s uppermost terrace ends in a balustraded balcony at the left end, with a sweeping view over the plain below. The grounds of the Villa d’Este also house the Museo Didattico del Libro Antico, a teaching museum for the study and conservation of antiquarian books.

L-R: Kyle, Cheska, Grace and Jandy

Villa d‘ Este: Piazza Trento, 5, 00019 Tivoli, RM, Italy. Tel: 0039 0412719036. Fax: 0039 0412770747. E-mail: villadestetivoli@teleart.org. Website: www.villadestetivoli.info.

How to Get There:

Taking the blue regional COTRAL busRoma Tivoli-Via Prenestina at the bus terminal just outside Ponte Mammolo station of metro line B; the stop Largo Nazioni Unite is about 100m far from the entrance of the Villa.
Taking the urban train line FL2 (Roma-Pescara Line) from Tiburtina stationto Tivoli station (Stazione Tivoli), then, local bus CAT number 1 or 4/ to Piazza Garibaldi stop; the stop is in Tivoli’s main square in front of the Villa.

Hadrian’s Villa (Tivoli, Italy)

Posted on 26 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Our first trip outside Rome brought us to Hadrian’s Villa (Villa Adriana in Italian), a large, important Roman cultural and archaeological site, major tourist destination (along with the nearby Villa d’Este and the town of Tivoli) and a UNESCO World Heritage Site at Tibur (now modern-day Tivoli). It is situated southeast of Tivoli, on a small plain extending on the slopes of the Tiburine Hills. In early times, it was accessed by the Via Tiburtina and the Aniene river, a tributary of the Tiber River.

Hadrian’s Villa

Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was said to dislike the palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome, built the villa as his retreat from Rome. Around AD 128, it became his official residence, actually governing the empire from here during the later years of his reign. Therefore, a large court had to live there permanently and a postal service kept it in contact with Rome 29 kms. (18 mi.) away. Although its architect is unknown, it is said that Hadrian had a direct intervention in the design of the villa.

L-R: Cheska, Kyle, Grace and Jandy

After Hadrian, the villa was occasionally used by his various successors. Busts of Antoninus Pius (138-161), Marcus Aurelius (161-180), Lucius Verus (161-169), Septimius Severus and Caracalla have been found on the premises and Zenobia, the deposed queen of Palmyra, possibly lived here in the 270s after her defeat by Emperor Aurelian.

The author with Jandy

In the 4th century, during the decline of the Roman Empire, the villa gradually fell into disuse. It was partially ruined as valuable statues and marble were taken away and, during the destructive Gothic War (535–554) between the Ostrogoths and Byzantines, the facility was used as a warehouse by both sides.

Remains of lime kilns, where marble from the complex was burned to extract lime for building material, have been found. In the 16th century, much of the remaining marble and statues in Hadrian’s Villa was removed to decorate Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este own Villa d’Este located nearby. In the 18th century, many antiquities were also excavated by dealers such as Piranesi and Gavin Hamilton to sell to Grand Tourists and antiquarians such as Charles Towneley. They are now in major antiquities collections elsewhere in Europe and North America.

Today, the villa is a property of the Republic of Italy and, since December 2014, was directed and run by the Polo Museale del Lazio . Because of the rapid deterioration of the ruins, the villa was placed on the 100 Most Endangered Sites 2006 list of the World Monuments Watch.

The site of this luxurious complex is a vast area of land (much still unexcavated) with over 30 buildings (including a theatre, libraries, a stadium, servants’ quarters, etc.) covering an area of at least 1 sq. km. (c. 250 acres or 100 ha.), all constructed in travertine, lime, pozzolana and tufa, plus many pools, fountains and water features; thermal baths (thermae); underground supply tunnels; and classical Greek architecture. Abundant water was readily available from aqueducts that passed through Rome, including Anio Vetus, Anio Nobus, Aqua Marcia and Aqua Claudia.

The ground stretches from north to south on a rise of about 40 m., starting from the foot of Monte Arcese, at the top of which is the town of Tivoli. The scale was so amazing, we spent hours wandering among the extensive ruins but only explored a number of buildings. There are essentially three types of buildings in Hadrian’s Villa – servants quarters, secondary buildings (ex. Great Baths) and noble buildings (ex. Small Baths).

1950s plastic model of Hadrian’s Villa

The villa, described as an architectural masterpiece and the greatest Roman example of an Alexandrian garden, recreates a sacred landscape and shows echoes of many different architectural orders (mostly Greek and Egyptian) and innovations.

Wall of the Poikile

The designs were borrowed and utilized by the very well traveled Hadrian who personally supervised the building work and included these architectural features to remind him of his travels, of the countries he had visited and the times the bisexual Hadrian spent with his deified favorite and lover, Antinous (accidentally drowned in Egypt), around whose youthful charm a cult was established. It is thought that Hadrian modelled parts of his palace on sites he knew and admired throughout his empire, from Athens to Egypt, giving them names such as Lyceum, Academy, Prytaneum, Canopus, Poikile and Tempes. He even made an Underworld.

The Pecile

One of the first stops on our tour of the villa was a little pavilion housing a 1950s plastic model of the villa, giving us an idea of the original appearance of the site. We then passed through a large Wall of the Poikile (a huge rectangular colonnade with a pool in the center, half the structure rests on a large artificial platform), arriving at Hadrian’s Pecile, a huge garden surrounded by an arcade and a large, restored rectangular 232 by 97 m. swimming pool, fishpond or lake in the center of the quadriportico, originally surrounded by four walls (creating a peaceful solitude for Hadrian and guests) with Greek-style colonnaded (these columns helped to support the roof) interior.

The Cento Camerelle (Hundred Chambers)

The less visible Cento Camerelle (Hundred Chambers), beneath the esplanade of the Pecile, consists of dozens of rooms of lower quality that identify them as the living quarters of the Villa’s serving class. To keep these rooms from becoming too humid, it has a hollow double wall separating them from the adjacent hill. and vast amount of rooms in the Chambers help .

The Building with Three Exedrae

The Building with Three Exedrae, a rectangular, highly articulated complex, has a triple exedra with porticoes on three of its outer walls. One wing of the building has mainly open spaces while the other more has more enclosed areas. The north-facing rooms were used for summer banquets.

The Canopus

Caryatids

Statue of Neptune

The Canopus (named after an Egyptian resort next to Alexandria), one of the most striking and best preserved parts of the villa, is a 119 m. long by 18 m. wide lake with Greek-influenced architecture (typical in Roman architecture of the High and Late Empire) that can be seen in the Corinthian columns, connected to each other with marble, and the copies of famous Greek caryatids that surround the pool.

Statue of an Amazon

Statue of Ares

The Serapeum

At its farthest end is the Serapeum, a temple with with a peculiarly-shaped umbrella dome and artificial grotto dedicated to the god Serapis. The Corinthian arches of the Canopus and Serapeum as well as the domes of the main buildings, show clear Roman architecture. Fine mosaics are still preserved in a row of sleeping chambers. Some of the more recent finds and statues from the site are on display in a museum near the Canopus.

The Small Bath (Piccole Terme)

Just northwest of the Canopus, in the central part of the villa, are the ruins of the Great and Small Baths. In front were the palestras, open paved courtyards where excersises took place, then calidariums (hot water bath), tepidarium (warm bath), laconicums (circular shaped saunas) and frigidariums (cold water rinsing room). Scattered throughout are a few latrines, one of a single seater in the Small Baths and two public ones in the Great Baths.

The Great Bath (Grandi Terme)

The Great Baths (Grandi Terme) were paved in opus spicatum (a simple black and white mosaic) while the Small Baths (Piccole Terme) were done in the higher quality marble opus sectile.

Frigidarium of the Great Bath

Both used white marble (especially typical of water basins in the villa) revetments as a type of finish and colored fresco ceiling decorations could also be found throughout each (the Small Baths even have some of the red and white pattern still visible today). The noble Small Baths exhibited more elaborate architecture. At the Octagon Hall, the perspective view through other rooms create an illusion of infinite space.

Beautiful stucco decoration at the Great Bath

The Praetorium, dating to 125-133 CE, has two distinct levels. The upper level, reserved for distinguished guests, has lavishly decorated rooms facing a large garden to the south, with walls and pavements in opus sectile, and Doric columns of cipollino marble. The lower level, composed of three floors of substructions (servants’ lodgings), supported the richly decorated upper part. It has rooms of utilitarian purpose such as storage rooms and perhaps dormitory rooms for the service staff.

The Praetorium

Hadrian’s Villa: Largo Marguerite Yourcenar, 1, 00010 Tivoli RM, Italy. Tel: +39 0774 530203. Admission: €6.50. Open 9 AM to 7 PM.

How to Get There: Frequent buses, operated by Cotral, run from Rome to Tivoli along the Via Tiburtina. They depart from a bus station outside Ponte Mammolo Metro station on Linea B, nine stops from Stazione Termini. This bus service stops on the main road, the Via Tiburtina, about a mile from Hadrian’s Villa. Ask the driver where to get off, then walk along the suburban Via di Villa Adriana to the site’s entrance. An alternative service from Rome to Tivoli, which runs along the Via Prenestina, stops nearer to the villa, but is very infrequent.

An alternative is to catch a second bus out from Tivoli to the archaeological site. A local company called CAT runs a bus service (numbers 4, 4X) from Tivoli to the suburbs near the Villa Adriana. It calls at various bus stops in Tivoli including Piazza Garibaldi. Tickets cost €1 per journey and can be bought at the CAT office, shops and news-stands in Tivoli and from a bar opposite the bus stop (buy your return ticket in advance). Ask the driver where to get off, as the bus drops you a few hundred yards from the site. To return towards Tivoli, leave the villa, walk past the little park and continue straight along the road for a few yards till you find a bus stop. Since the CAT local bus takes the same Via Tiburtina route up into Tivoli as the Cotral buses, you can cross the road and change to the Rome-bound service without riding all the way back into Tivoli.

You can then return to Rome by one of three methods: catch the occasional Via Prenestina bus, walk back to the Via Tiburtina to catch the frequent Rome Cotral bus, or take the CAT service either to the Via Tiburtina or all the way back into Tivoli and change there for a Rome service. It can be slow getting back into Rome during the rush hour, so it’s worth considering visiting on a Saturday when the roads may be clearer.

Church of Santa Maria Maddalena (Rome, Italy)

Posted on 25 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Church of Santa Maria Magalena

Named after Saint Mary Magdalene, this Roman Catholic church is located on the one of the streets leading from the Piazza della Rotonda in the Campo Marzio area of historic Rome. Started in the 17th century, the current church was completed in 1699 after seventy years of work involving several architects including Carlo Quadri, Carlo Fontana (who is thought to have designed the dome) and Giovanni Antonio de Rossi. It is uncertain who designed the curved main Rococo-style (unusual style in Roman church facades) facade, which was finished circa 1735.

The elongated, octagonal Borrominesque nave flanked by two chapels

Built in the Baroque style, early guide books credit Giuseppe Sardi with its highly unusual façade decoration. It also displays motifs reminiscent of Borromini. Between 1732 and 1734, Portuguese Manuel Rodrigues dos Santos (historian Alessandra Marino believes that it is Dos Santos, rather than Giuseppe Sardi, that the design should be attributed), an architect of the order, directed the completion of works at the church. The monastery, on the church’s left, was constructed circa 1678 by Paolo Amato (from Palermo) and completed in the early 1680s by C.F. Bizzacheri.

The architecturally complex interior has an elongated, octagonal Borrominesque nave flanked by two chapels. The main chapel, to the right, is dedicated to and holds the relics of Saint Camillus, its vault frescoed in 1744 by Sebastiano Conca. The church also has a Christ, Virgin, and St. Nicolas of Bari by Baciccia and a San Lorenzo Giustiniani with Infant Jesus by Luca Giordano. The elaborately painted, stuccoed Rococo sacristy is decorated with polychrome marble.

Church of Santa Maria Maddalena: Via della Maddalena, Rome, Italy

Pantheon (Rome, Italy)

Posted on 25 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — 1 Comment ↓

The Pantheon and Piazza della Rotunda

The fountain and obelisk

Built more than 1800 years ago, the magnificent Pantheon still stands as a reminder of the great Roman Empire. It borders the Piazza della Rotonda, a rectangular square with at its center an eighteenth-century fountain crowned with an obelisk.

This constantly crowded square, situated in the historic center of Rome, is not far from Piazza Navona. With its thick brick walls, large columns and 43 m. high dome, this cylindrical building made an immediate impression on us. As the best-preserved example of an ancient Roman monumental building, the Pantheon has been enormously influential in Western architecture from at least the Renaissance on. Even in its present state, the Pantheon allowed me a glimpse into the marvelous and stunning world of Roman architecture. This wonderful example of second century Roman architecture boasts mathematical genius and simple geometry that even today still impressed an architect like me.

Standin L-R: the author and Jandy. Seated L-R: Grace, Kyle and Cheska

Standing L-R: the author and Jandy. Seated L-R: Grace, Kyle and Cheska

The present Pantheon was built on the site of an earlier building commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD), The Augustan Pantheon, along with other buildings, was destroyed in a huge fire in the year 80 AD. Domitian rebuilt the Pantheon, which was burnt again in 110 AD. It was completed by the emperor Hadrian and probably dedicated about 126 AD. In 202, the building was repaired by the joint emperors Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla (fully Marcus Aurelius Antoninus), for which there is another, smaller inscription on the architrave of the façade. In the walls at the back of the Pantheon’s portico are niches, perhaps intended for statues of Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, and Agrippa, or for the Capitoline Triad, or another set of gods.

Jandy and the author. The inscription above reads: M•AGRIPPA•L•F•COS•TERTIVM• FECIT meaning “Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, made [this building] when consul for the third time.”

The entrance doorway

In 609, the Byzantine emperor Phocas gave the building to Pope Boniface IV, who converted it into a Christian church and consecrated it to St. Mary and the Martyrs (Latin: Santa Maria ad Martyres) on May 13, 609.

The building’s consecration as a church saved it from the abandonment, destruction, and the worst of the spoliation that befell the majority of ancient Rome’s buildings during the early medieval period. This circular building, with a front portico of three rows of large granite Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four behind) under a pediment, has a rectangular vestibule that links the porch to the rotunda. The rotunda, under a coffered concrete dome, has a central opening (oculus) to the sky.

The Pantheon

Here’s some interesting trivia regarding the Pantheon:

The name Pantheon refers to the building’s original function as a temple for all the gods. However, the generic term pantheon has sometimes been applied to other buildings in which illustrious dead are honored or buried.
Its date of construction has been confused as Hadrian retained Agrippa’s original inscription – M·AGRIPPA·L·F·COS·TERTIVM· FECIT meaning “Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, made [this building] when consul for the third time.”
It is one of the best-preserved of all ancient Roman buildings, in large part because it has been in continuous use throughout its history.
Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon’s dome, substantially larger than earlier domes, is still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, spanning 150 Roman ft. It was the largest dome in the world until 1436 when Brunelleschi‘s 42-m. dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence was constructed.
The building was originally approached by a flight of steps but these were eliminated after later construction raised the level of the ground leading to the portico.
The Pantheon was probably constructed by using an elaborate setup of costly wooden scaffolding.
The grey 39 ft. (11.9 m.) high, 5 ft. (1.5 m.) diameter granite columns that were actually used in the Pantheon’s pronaos, each weighing 60 tons, were quarried at Mons Claudianus in the eastern mountains in Egypt. Each of these was dragged, on wooden sledges, more than 100 kms. (62 miles) from the quarry to the Nile River, floated by barge when the water level was high during the spring floods, then transferred to vessels to cross the Mediterranean Sea to the Roman port of Ostia. There, they were transferred back onto barges and pulled up the Tiber River to Rome. After being unloaded near the Mausoleum of Augustus, it was necessary to either drag them or to move them on rollers to the construction site 700 m. away.
Most of the bombards for the fortification of Castel Sant’Angelo used about 90% of the bronze from the ceiling of the Pantheon’s portico, ordered melted down by Pope Urban VIII (1623 to 1644). The remaining amount was used by the Apostolic Camera for various other works. It is also said that the bronze was used by Bernini in creating his famous baldachin above the high altar of Peter’s Basilica (however, one expert states that the bronze for the baldachin came from Venice).
The large bronze doors to the cella, once plated with gold, are ancient but not the original ones of the Pantheon. The current doors, manufactured too small for the 40 Roman ft. high door frames, have only been there since about the 15th century.
The height to the oculus (30 Roman feet in diameter) and the diameter of the interior circle are the same, 43.3 m. (145 Roman feet or 141 feet 8 inches), so the whole interior would fit exactly within a cube. In a similar note, the interior could house a sphere 43.3 m. in diameter. If the dome of the rotunda were flipped upside down it would fit perfectly inside the rotunda.
From the outside, the Pantheon appears rectangular in shape but it is only the first small room (cella) that has corners. The rotunda is completely round.
The Pantheon has no windows. The oculus, an engineering gem of the Roman world at the dome’s apex, and the entry door are the only natural sources of light in the interior.
Though often drawn as a free-standing building, the Pantheon abuts a building at its rear which helps buttress the rotunda but was no interior passage from one to the other.
The interior of the dome was possibly intended to symbolize the arched vault of the heavens. Throughout the day, the light from the oculus moves around this space in a reverse sundial effect.
The oculus, still lined with the original Roman bronze, also serves as a cooling and ventilation method. Never covered, rain falls into the interior and runs off the slightly convex floor to the still functioning Roman drainpipes underneath.
No oculus had even dared come close in size to the one in the Pantheon.
In 2013, the Pantheon was visited by over 6 million people.
Since the Renaissance the Pantheon has been used as a tomb. Among those buried there are the painters Raphael and Annibale Carracci, the composer Arcangelo Corelli, and the architect Baldassare Peruzzi. Two kings of Italy are also buried in the Pantheon: Vittorio Emanuele II and Umberto I, as well as Umberto’s Queen, Margherita.
The Pantheon is in use as a Catholic church. Masses are celebrated there on Sundays and holy days of obligation. Weddings are also held there from time to time.

A state property, the Pantheon is ruled by Italy’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism through the Polo Museale del Lazio. The National Institute of Honor Guards to the Royal Tombs, founded in 1878, maintain the royal tombs and also organize picket guards at the tombs.

The dome and oculus

The 4,535 metric ton (4,999 short ton) Roman concrete dome is concentrated on a ring of 9.1 m. (30 ft.) diameter voussoirs that form the oculus while the downward thrust of the dome is carried by 8 barrel vaults in the 6.4 m.(21 ft.) thick drum wall into eight piers. The thickness of the dome varies from 6.4 m. (21 ft.) at the base of the dome to 1.2 m. (3.9 ft.) around the oculus. The material used in the concrete of the dome also varies.

During the construction of the Pantheon, the most important problem the Romans faced was the massive weight of the large dome. To substantially reduced stresses in the dome, successively less dense aggregate stones in higher layers of the dome were used. At its thickest point, the aggregate is travertine, then terracotta tiles and, lastly, at the very top, where the dome would be at its weakest and vulnerable to collapse, tufa and pumice, both porous light stones. The elimination of the apex by means of the oculus actually lightened the load.

The evenly spaced, difficult to achieve layout of the dome, featuring elegant sunken panels (coffers) in five rings of 28, is presumed to have symbolic meaning, either numerical, geometric, or lunar. In antiquity, the panels may have contained bronze stars, rosettes or other ornaments. Most likely, they were struck with a device that was exacted from floor level

Hidden chambers engineered within the rotunda formed a sophisticated structural system. The top of the rotunda wall features a series of brick relieving arches, visible on the outside and built into the mass of the brickwork. Inside, there are relieving arches over the recesses, all hidden by marble facing on the interior and possibly by stone revetment or stucco on the exterior.

Half dome above the high altar

High altar

The present high altars and the apses inside were commissioned by Pope Clement XI (1700–1721) and designed by Alessandro Specchi.

A 7th-century Byzantine icon of the Virgin and Child, given by Phocas to Pope Boniface IV on the occasion of the dedication of the Pantheon for Christian worship on May 13, 609, is enshrined on the apse above the high altar. The choir, added in 1840, was designed by Luigi Poletti.

Madonna of the Girdle and St Nicholas of Bari (1686)

Annunciation (Melozzo da Forli)

The first niche, to the right of the entrance, holds a Madonna of the Girdle and St Nicholas of Bari (1686) painted by an unknown artist. The Chapel of the Annunciation, the first chapel on the right, has a fresco of the Annunciation attributed to Melozzo da Forlì.

On the left side is a canvas of St Lawrence and St Agnes (1645–1650) by Clement Maioli. The Incredulity of St Thomas (1633), by Pietro Paolo Bonzi, is on the right wall. A 15th-century fresco of the Tuscan school, depicting the Coronation of the Virgin, is in the second niche.

St Lawrence and St Agnes (Clement Maioli)

Incredulity of St Thomas (1633, Pietro Paolo Bonzi)

Tomb of King Victor Emmanuel II

In the second chapel, originally dedicated to the Holy Spirit and designed by Manfredo Manfredi, is the tomb of King Victor Emmanuel II who died in 1878.

Started in 1885, the tomb consists of a large bronze plaque, surmounted by a Roman eagle, and the arms of the house of Savoy.

The golden lamp above the tomb burns in honor of Victor Emmanuel III who died in exile in 1947.

The Roman eagle and the arms of the House of Savoy

St Anne and the Blessed Virgin (Il Lorenzone)

The third niche has a sculpture of St Anne and the Blessed Virgin done by Il Lorenzone. In the third chapel is The Madonna of Mercy between St Francis and St John the Baptist, a 15th-century painting of the Umbrian school, also known as the Madonna of the Railing, because it originally hung in the niche on the left-hand side of the portico where it was protected by a railing.

It was moved to the Chapel of the Annunciation and then, sometime after 1837, to its present position. The bronze epigram commemorated Pope Clement XI‘s restoration of the sanctuary.

The Madonna of Mercy between St Francis and St John the Baptist

St. Anastasio (Bernardino Cametti)

On the right wall is the canvas Emperor Phocas presenting the Pantheon to Pope Boniface IV (1750) done by an unknown artist.

There are three memorial plaques in the floor, one commemorating a Gismonda written in the vernacular.

The final niche, on the right side, has a statue of St. Anastasio (1725) done by Bernardino Cametti.

Assumption (1638, Andrea Camassei)

St Joseph and the Holy Child (Vincenzo de Rossi)

On the first niche to the left of the entrance is an Assumption (1638) done by Andrea Camassei. The Chapel of St Joseph in the Holy Land, the first chapel on the left, is the chapel of the Confraternity of the Virtuosi at the Pantheon referring to the confraternity of artists and musicians that was formed here by Desiderio da Segni, a 16th-century Canon of the church, to ensure that worship was maintained in the chapel.

The institution still exists but is now called the Academia Ponteficia di Belle Arti (The Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts), based in the Palace of the Cancelleria. The altar in the chapel, covered with false marble, has a statue of St Joseph and the Holy Child done by Vincenzo de Rossi.

Adoration of the Magi (Francesco Cozza)

Adoration of the Shepherds (Francesco Cozza)

The paintings Adoration of the Shepherds, on left side, and Adoration of the Magi on right were done in 1661 by Francesco Cozza, one of the Virtuosi.

The Dream of St Joseph, the stucco relief on the left, was done by Paolo Benaglia while Rest during the flight from Egypt, the one on the right, was done by Carlo Monaldi.

Stucco relief Dream of St Joseph (Paolo Benaglia)

Rest during the flight from Egypt (Carlo Monaldi)

Bust of Baldassare Peruzzi

On the vault are several 17th-century canvases, from left. to right: Cumean Sibyl by Ludovico Gimignani; Moses by Francesco Rosa; Eternal Father by Giovanni Peruzzini; David by Luigi Garzi; and Eritrean Sibyl by Giovanni Andrea Carlone.

The second niche has a statue of St Agnes and Agnus Dei done by Vincenzo Felici (1700). The bust on the left is a portrait of Baldassare Peruzzi, derived from a plaster portrait done by Giovanni Duprè.

St Agnes and Agnus Dei (1700, Vincenzo Felici)

Tomb of King Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy

The next chapel, opposite the tomb of King Victor Emmanuel II, is the tomb of Umberto I and his wife Margherita di Savoia. Originally dedicated to St Michael the Archangel and then to St. Thomas the Apostle, the present design is by Giuseppe Sacconi and completed, after his death, by his pupil Guido Cirilli.

It consists of a slab of alabaster mounted in gilded bronze and a frieze with allegorical representations of Generosity, by Eugenio Maccagnani, and Munificence, by Arnaldo Zocchi. The altar with the royal arms is by Cirilli.

Generosity (Eugenio Maccagnani)

Munificence (Arnaldo Zocchi)

Bust of the painter Raphael (Giuseppe Fabris)

The third niche, with the inscription on the sarcophagus Ossa et cineres (“Bones and ashes”), holds the mortal remains of the great artist Raphael while to the right of his sarcophagus is that of his fiance, Maria Bibbiena who died before they could marry.

The sarcophagus, given by Pope Gregory XVI, has an epigraph, written by Pietro Bembo, that reads ILLE HIC EST RAPHAEL TIMUIT QUO SOSPITE VINCI / RERUM MAGNA PARENS ET MORIENTE MORI (“Here lies Raphael, by whom the mother of all things (Nature) feared to be overcome while he was living, and while he was dying, herself to die”).

Tomb of Raphael

Madonna del Sasso (1524, Lorenzetto)

The present arrangement, designed by Antonio Munoz, is from 1811. The bust of Raphael (1833) was done by Giuseppe Fabris.

The two plaques commemorate Maria Bibbiena and Annibale Carracci. Behind the tomb is the statue, commissioned by Raphael and made by Lorenzetto in 1524, known as the Madonna del Sasso (Madonna of the Rock) so named because she rests one foot on a boulder.

Chapel of the Crucifixion

St. Rasius (1727, Francesco Moderati)

The Roman brick wall is visible in the niches of the Chapel of the Crucifixion. The wooden crucifix on the altar is from the 15th century.

On the left wall is a Descent of the Holy Ghost (1790), done by Pietro Labruzi, while on the right side is the low relief Cardinal Consalvi presents to Pope Pius VII the five provinces restored to the Holy See (1824) made by the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. The bust is a portrait of Cardinal Agostino Rivarola. The final niche on this side has a statue of St. Rasius (S. Erasio) (1727) done by Francesco Moderati.

Chapel of the Madonna of Mercy

Statue of Archangel Gabriel

The unifying theme of the ecclesiastical interior design, a striking synthesis of tradition and innovation which contrasts with the temple’s structural design, is circles and squares. The checkerboard marble floor pattern, still the ancient Roman original, consists of a series of geometric patterns which contrast with the concentric circles of square coffers in the dome.

From floor to ceiling, each interior decorative zone is subdivided according to a different scheme and, as a result, do not line up. Even though the cylindrical space, topped by a hemispherical dome, is inherently ambiguous, the overall effect is immediate viewer orientation according to the major axis of the building. This discordance has not always been appreciated. In fact, in the 18th century, the attic level was redone according to Neo-Classical taste.

Pantheon: Piazza della Rotonda, 00186 Rome, Italy. Tel: +39 06 68300230. Open Mondays to Saturdays, 9 AM – 6.30 PM, and Sundays, 9 AM –1 PM. There is no admission charge and no security screening.

How to Get There: You have to walk to get there as the narrow streets where you find the Pantheon are far too narrow for buses. By bus, get off at the Trevi Fountain stop then walk for 5 mins. There is also no Metro station nearby.Take Line A, stop at Barberini station and then walk for about 10 mins.

Spanish Steps (Rome, Italy)

Posted on 24 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

The monumental Spanish Steps

The monumental Spanish Steps (Italian: Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti), a stairway of 135 steps (the slightly elevated drainage system is often mistaken for the first step), climbs a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, was built from 1723–1725 with French diplomat Étienne Gueffier’s bequeathed funds of 20,000 scudi.

Piazza di Spagna

Designed by the little-known architect Francesco de Sanctis (though Alessandro Specchi was long thought to have produced the winning entry), following a competition in 1717, it links the Bourbon Spanish Embassy and the Trinità dei Monti church (under the patronage of the Bourbon kings of France), both located above at the top, to the Holy See in Palazzo Monaldeschi below.

Trinità dei Monti Church

At the base of the stairway is the Fontana della Barcaccia (“Fountain of the ugly Boat”), an Early Baroque sculptural fountain built, with travertine as its material, from 1627–29. It is often credited to Pietro Bernini who, since 1623, was Pope Urban VIII’s architect for the Acqua Vergine, an aqueduct from 19 BC which is the source of the fountain’s water. His more famous son, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, was recently said to have collaborated on the decoration. According to a legend, the pope had the fountain installed after he had been impressed by a boat brought here by the 1598 flood of the Tiber River.

Fontana della Barcaccia

The center baluster

Made into the shape of a half-sunken ship, with water overflowing from its sides into a small basin, it was built slightly below street level due to the low water pressure (hence no water spectacle) from the aqueduct which flows from seven points of fountain: – the center baluster; two inside the boat (from sun-shaped human faces) and four outside the boat. As a reminder of Pope Urban VIII’s ancestry, the fountain is decorated with the papal coat of arms of the Barberini family.

Sun-shaped human faces

As one begins to climb the steps one can see, at the corner on the right, the house where English poet John Keats lived and died in 1821. It is now a museum dedicated to his memory, full of memorabilia of the English Romantic generation.

The Spanish Steps was featured in a number of films, TV shows and music albums:

The 1953 film Roman Holiday, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, made the Spanish Steps famous to an American audience.
Halfway up the steps, on the right, was the apartment that was the setting for the 1961 film The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.
A house next to the Steps is also the setting or Bernardo Bertolucci‘s 1998 film Besieged.
The Steps were featured prominently in the film version of The Talented Mr. Ripley starring Matt Damon in the title role.
The Spanish Steps are featured in a scene in the 2015 film The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
The Steps are featured in numerous scenes in Alfred Bester‘s 1956 novel The Stars My Destination.
In an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond which aired on October 2, 2000, Ray, Debra, Frank, and Marie climb the Spanish Steps during a family vacation in Rome.
Refugee, a progressive rock group, recorded the song “Credo” in 1974. It contains the lyrics “I believe in constant pauses / Like a Roman holiday / And I often stop for air / As I climb the Spanish stairs.”
“When I Paint My Masterpiece,” a Bob Dylan song first recorded in 1971 by The Band and later appearing on the album Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II, mentions both the “Spanish Stairs” and the Colosseum.
In 1995, Norwegian singer/songwriter Morten Harket, from A-ha, released a song called “Spanish Steps” on his album Wild Seed.
“Walk Through the World,” a Marc Cohn song released in 1993 album The Rainy Season, includes the lyric “From the Spanish Steps to the Liberty Bell, I know the angels have seen us.”
The title song from Guy Clark‘s Dublin Blues album (1995) contains the lyric: “I loved you on the Spanish Steps / The day you said goodbye.”
The song “Spanish Steps of Rome,” a bonus track in the North American & Japanese versions of the Mindfields album released in 1999 by American rock band Toto, describes a femme fatale romance that takes place on and around the Spanish Steps.
In 2005, American rock band Of A Revolution released One Shot from their album Stories of a Stranger, which contains the lyrics “Rome is burning, you can taste the embers / I am walking hard on Spanish Steps.”
In 2007, John Tesh of Entertainment Tonight fame, recorded an instrumental tune called “Spanish Steps” on his A Passionate Life.

The Spanish Steps have been restored several times, most recently in 1995.

L-R: Jandy and the author

Spanish Steps: Piazza di Spagna, Rome, Italy

Trevi Fountain (Rome, Italy)

Posted on 24 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Trevi Fountain

The impressive Trevi Fountain (Italian: Fontana di Trevi), designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed by Pietro Bracci, is one of the most famous fountains in the world and arguably the most beautiful fountain in all of Rome. The fountain, located at the junction of three roads (tre vie), marks the terminal point of the “modern” Acqua Vergine, the revived Aqua Virgo, one of the aqueducts that supplied water to ancient Rome.

Bas-relief of the virgin pointing to the source of the spring

Bas-relief showing the virgin pointing to the source of the spring

Legend has it that in 19 BC, thirsty Roman soldiers, supposedly with the help of a young virgin girl, located Salone Springs, a source of pure water some 13 kms. (8.1 mi.) from the city (This scene is presented on the present fountain’s façade). The discovery of the source led Augustus Caesar to commission the construction, by Agrippa, his son-in-law, of the Aqua Virgo (Virgin Waters, in honor of the legendary young girl), a 22-km. (14-mi.) aqueduct leading into the city. The aqueduct served the hot Baths of Agrippa, and Rome, for over 400 years.

Bas-relief showing Agrippa, explaining his plan for the aqueduct to Augustus Caesar

Work on the fountain began in 1732 and it was completed by Giuseppe Pannini in 1762, long after Salvi’s death in 1751, when Pietro Bracci‘s Oceanus (god of all water) was set in the central niche. Pannini substituted the present allegories for planned sculptures of Agrippa and “Trivia,” the Roman virgin. On May 22, 1762, it was officially opened and inaugurated by Pope Clement XIII. Today, it remains one of the most historical cultural landmarks in Rome.

Palazzo Poli and the Trevi Fountain

The Palazzo Poli, the backdrop for the fountain, was given a new façade, with a giant order of Corinthian pilasters linking the two main stories. Taming of the waters is the theme of the gigantic scheme that tumbles forward, mixing water and rockwork, and filling the small square. A chariot in the shape of a shell, the central feature of the monument, is drawn by seahorses with as their guide.

Corinthian pilasters

Even the palace in the background blends perfectly with the composition and the game of space and mass gives an air of movement to the entire statue.

Oceanus riding a shell-shaped chariot

At the center, superimposed on the palazzo façade, is a robustly-modeled triumphal arch. For maximum light and shade, the enormous central niche (exedra) framing Oceanus (or Neptune), god of the sea, has free-standing columns. He rides a shell-shaped chariot that is pulled by two hippocamps (sea horses), one calm and obedient and the other one restive, and each guided by a Triton.

The calm and obedient hippocamp and his Triton

Sculpted by Pietro Bracci, the statues symbolize the fluctuating moods of the sea. Even with the maximum contrast in their mood and poses, both hippocamps and Tritons provide symmetrical balance.

The restive hippocamp and his Triton

In the niches flanking Oceanus are the statues of Abundance (spills water from her urn) and Salubrity (holds a cup from which a snake drinks).

Statue of Abundance

Statue of Salubrity

Above, bas reliefs illustrate the Roman origin of the aqueducts. The bas-relief on the left shows Agrippa, the general who built the aqueduct that carries water to the fountain, explaining his plan for the aqueduct to his father-in-law Augustus Caesar. The one the right captures the moment the virgin points to the source of the spring. The allegorical statues on the top, in front of the attic, symbolize the Four Seasons. Crowning the top is the coat of arms of Pope Clement XII.

Bas-relief of the virgin pointing to the source of the spring

All around, natural and artificial forms merge together in a representation of rocks and petrified vegetation that run along the foundation of the palace and around the borders of a large semicircular basin that represents the sea.

Two of the Four Seasons

Every day some eighty million liters of water flow over artificial rocks through the fountain. The water is reused to supply several other Roman fountains, including the Fountain of the Four Rivers, the Tortoise Fountain and the Fountain of the Old Boat in front of the Spanish Steps.

Coat-of-arms of Pope Clement XII

Here are some facts and trivia regarding the Trevi Fountain:

The largestBaroque fountain in the city, the fountain stands 26.3 m. (86 ft.) high, 49.15 m. (161.3 ft.) wide and occupies more than half the square.
Salvi, before he died in 1751 with his work half finished, made sure a stubborn barber’s unsightly sign would not spoil the ensemble, hiding it behind a sculpted vase, called by Romans theasso di coppe, the “Ace of Cups.”
The majority of the fountain was made fromTravertine stone, quarried near Tivoli, about 35 kms. (22 mi.) east of Rome.
In 1973, Italian National Postal Service dedicated a postage stamp to Trevi Fountain.
In 1998, the fountain was refurbished; the stonework was scrubbed, all cracks and other areas of deterioration were repaired by skilled artisans, and the fountain was equipped with recirculating pumps.
In January 2013, it was announced that Fendi, the Italian fashion company, would sponsor a 20-month, 2.2-million-euro restoration of the fountain, the most thorough restoration in the fountain’s history. Restoration work, including the installation of more than 100 LED lights to improve the nighttime illumination of the fountain, began in June 2014 and, on the evening of November 3, 2015, the fountain was reopened with an official ceremony.
There is a curious tradition regarding the Trevi Fountain. It is said that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the water, you will be sure to return to Rome. Coins are purportedly meant to be thrown using the right hand over the left shoulder (or your left hand over your right shoulder), with your back to the fountain. While you’re tossing the coin, you’re not allowed to look behind you but the fountain is so large it’s basically impossible to miss.

Trevi Fountain scene at La Dolce Vita

The fountain has appeared in several notable films, including Federico Fellini‘s renowned 1960 Italian film La Dolce Vita. The scene, on a quiet night in an almost unreal Rome (actually shot over a week in winter), features an alluring Anita Ekberg jumping into the Trevi Fountain, with her clothes on, and invites Marcello Mastroianni to join her. The coin tossing tradition was also the theme of 1954’s Three Coins in the Fountain and the Academy Award-winning song by that name which introduced the picture.

Trevi Fountain scene in the movie Three Coins in a Fountain

An estimated 3,000 Euros are thrown into the fountain each day. The money has been used to subsidize a supermarket for Rome’s needy.
It is illegal to steal coins from the Trevi Fountain. Still, there are regular attempts to steal coins from the fountain.

Grace, Jandy, the author and Cheska at Trevi Fountain

Trevi Fountain: Piazza di Trevi, Trevi district, 00187 Rome, Italy

Arch of Titus (Rome, Italy)

Posted on 24 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Arch of Titus

The fluted and unfluted column section

The Arch of Titus (Italian: Arco di Tito; Latin: Arcus Titi), located just to the southeast of the Roman Forum, is one of the most celebrated monuments in the Forum Romanum. This honorific arch was constructed from A.D. 82 – 85 by Emperor Domitian, shortly after the death of his older brother Titus (who died suddenly during a plague A.D. 81, after only a two year reign), to commemorate the immensely popular Titus’ victories, including the Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE).

Since the 16th century, this 1st-century A.D. arch has provided the general model for many triumphal arches erected. Perhaps, most famously, it is the inspiration for the Arc de Triomphe (which maintains the exact proportions of the Arch of Titus, though several times larger), in Paris, France. Domitian‘s favored architect Rabirius, sometimes credited with the Colosseum, may have executed the arch based on the style of sculptural details.

The large 15 m. high arch has both fluted and distinguishably unfluted columns, the latter being a result of modern restoration, starting with Raffaele Stern in 1817 and continued in 1821 by architect Giuseppe Valadier, under Pope Pius VII (with new capitals, new inscriptions on the opposite side, and restoration intentionally made in travertine masonry to differentiate between the original and the restored portions).

Winged women, personifications of victory, at spandrels

Winged women, personifications of victory, are found at the spandrels on the upper left and right of the arch. They stand on a globe and hold banners, trophies, laurel wreaths, and palm fronds. The keystone, between the spandrels, has a female on the east side and a male on the west side, both representing Roma and the Genius of the Roman people.

The deeply coffered soffit of the axial archway has, at the center, a relief of the apotheosis of Titus, showing him riding an eagle to heaven, where he’ll become one of the gods. Two 2.04 m high by 3.85 m long panel reliefs, commemorating the joint triumph celebrated by Titus and his father Vespasian in the summer of 71, line the passageway within the arch.

The apotheosis of Titus

The south panel (likely originally colored gold, with the background in blue) depicts the triumphal procession as it passes through the Porta Triumphalis to the Forum Boarium, with the participants carrying booty taken from the Temple in Jerusalem (one of the few contemporary depictions of Temple period artifacts).

It features a golden 7-branched Menorah (candelabrum), carved in deep relief, as the main focus plus other sacred objects being carried in the procession such as the Gold Trumpets, fire pans (for removing the ashes from the altar), the Table of Shew bread and, perhaps, even the Ark of the Covenant. In 2012, remains of yellow ocher paint on the menorah relief were discovered by the Arch of Titus Digital Restoration Project. The menorah depicted on the Arch, later to become a symbol of the Jewish diaspora, served as the model for the menorah used on the emblem of the state of Israel.

The quadriga (four-horsed chariot) carrying Titus

The north panel depicts Titus as triumphator, attended by various genii and lictors that carry fasces. The quadriga (four-horsed chariot) carrying Titus, crowned with a laurel wreath by a winged Victory, is lead by Valour, a helmeted Amazon holding the bridle of one of the horses. The two figures to the right of the chariot personify the people of Rome (naked torso) and the Senate (wearing a toga).

Significant as one of the first examples of divinities and humans being present in one scene together, it contrasts with the panels of the Ara Pacis, where humans and divinities are separated. It is also the first full attempt by Roman sculptors to create the illusion of space.

“The Roman Senate and People (dedicate this) to the divine Titus Vespasianus Augustus, son of the divine Vespasian.”

In the Middle Ages, when the Frangipani family turned it into a fortified tower, the sculpture of the outer faces of the two great piers was lost when the arch was incorporated in medieval defensive walls. The attic of the arch was originally crowned by more statuary, perhaps of a bronze quadriga, and the main inscription used to be ornamented by letters made of perhaps silver, gold or some other metal.

“(This) monument, remarkable in terms of both religion and art,
had weakened from age: Pius the Seventh, Supreme Pontiff,
by new works on the model of the ancient exemplar
ordered it reinforced and preserved in the 24th year of his sacred rulership”

Arch of Titus: Via Sacra, 00186 Rome, Italy.

Colosseum (Rome, Italy)

Posted on 24 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

The Colosseum

The oval, entirely free-standing Colosseum or Coliseum, an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome, is situated just east of the Roman Forum. Following the reign of Nero, it was began by emperor Vespasian in AD 72 and completed in AD 80 by his son and successor Titus. Further modifications were made during the reign of Vespasian’s younger son Domitian (81–96).

The outer wall

It has suffered extensive damage over the centuries, with large segments having collapsed following earthquakes. In 217, the wooden upper levels of the amphitheater’s interior was destroyed by a major fire (caused by lightning, according to Dio Cassius) and was not fully repaired until about 240. Further repairs were done in 250 or 252 and again in 320. Gladiatorial fights are. Various parts of the Colosseum were restored under Theodosius II and Valentinian III (reigned 425–455), possibly to repair damage caused by a major earthquake in 443. More work followed in 484 and 508.

The outer wall (left) and the nearly intact inner wall

The great 1349 earthquake severely damaged the Colosseum. The outer south side, lying on a less stable alluvial terrain, collapsed and much of the tumbled stone was reused to build palaces, churches, hospitals and other buildings elsewhere in Rome. The interior of the amphitheater was extensively stripped of stone, which was reused elsewhere. The marble façade was burned to make quicklime. The bronze clamps, used to hold the stonework together, were pried or hacked out of the walls, leaving numerous pockmarks which still scar the building today.

The Colosseum interior

In 1807 and 1827, the façade was reinforced with triangular brick wedges and, in 1831, 1846 and in the 1930s, the interior was repaired. In 1810–1814 and 1874, the arena substructure was partly excavated and, in the 1930s, was fully exposed under Benito Mussolini. Between 1993 and 2000, due to the effects of pollution and general deterioration over time, a major restoration program was carried out at a cost of 40 billion Italian lire ($19.3 million/ €20.6 million at 2000 prices).

The raked areas that once held seating

Here are some interesting facts and trivia regarding the Colosseum:

Built of concrete and sand, it is the largest amphitheatre ever built.
One of Rome’s most popular tourist attractions, it receives millions of visitors annually.
Elliptical in plan, it is 189 m. (615 ft./640 Roman ft.) long, 156 m. (510 ft./528 Roman ft.) wide and has a base area of 24,000 sq. m. (6 acres). Its outer wall is 48 m. (157 ft./165 Roman ft.) high. Its perimeter originally measured 545 m. (1,788 ft./1,835 Roman ft.). The central arena is an oval 87 m. (287 ft.) long and 55 m. (180 ft.) wide, surrounded by a wall 5 m. (15 ft.) high, above which rose tiers of seating. The arena itself was 83 m. by 48 m. (272 ft. by 157 ft./280 by 163 Roman ft.).
Its outer wall was estimated to have required over 100,000 cu. m. (3,531,467 cubic ft.) of travertine stone which were set without mortar and held together by 300 tons of iron clamps.
According to the Codex-Calendar of 354, the Colosseum could accommodate 87,000 spectators, although modern estimates put the figure at between 50,000 and 80,000, having an average audience of some 65,000.
The Colosseum was used for gladiatorial contests (last mentioned around 435) and public spectacles such as mock sea battles (for only a short time as the hypogeum was soon filled in with mechanisms to support the other activities), animal hunts (continued until at least 523, when Anicius Maximus celebrated his consulship with some venationes), executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology.
In the Early Medieval era, the building ceased to be used for entertainment but numerous vaulted spaces in the arcades under the seating were later reused for housing and workshops. It was also reused as a fortress (around 1200 by the Frangipani family), quarters for a Christian religious order (from mid-14th century until as late as the early 19th century), a quarry (stones from the Colosseum were taken for the building of other sacred sites), and a Christian shrine (in 1749, by Pope Benedict XIV).
The Colosseum is also depicted on the Italian version of the five-cent euro coin.
The Colosseum has become a symbol of the international campaign against capital punishment. The color of the Colosseum’s night time illumination changes from white to gold whenever a person condemned to the death penalty anywhere in the world gets their sentence commuted or is released,or if a jurisdiction abolishes the death penalty (most recently on November 2012, following the abolition of capital punishment in the American state of Connecticut in April 2012).
Large concerts, using the Colosseum as a backdrop, have been held just outside. They included concerts o Ray Charles (May 5, 2002), Paul McCartney (May 11, 2003), Elton John (September 3, 2005), and Billy Joel (July 31, 2006).

Cross dedicated to the Christian martyrs, placed in 2000 by Pope John Paul II

The iconic Colosseum has been featured in numerous films:

Roman Holiday

The Colosseum famously serves as the backdrop for several scenes in the 1953 film Roman Holiday.
In the 1954 film Demetrius and the Gladiators, the Emperor Caligula (Jay Robinson) anachronistically sentences the Christian Demetrius (Victor Mature) to fight in the Colosseum.

Demetrius and the Gladiators

The conclusion of the 1957 film 20 Million Miles to Earth takes place at the Colosseum.
In the 1972 film Way of the Dragon, Bruce Lee fought Chuck Norris in the Colosseum.
In Ridley Scott‘s 2000 film Gladiator, the Colosseum was re-created via computer-generated imagery (CGI) to “restore” it to the glory of its heyday in the 2nd century. The depiction of the building itself is generally accurate and it gives a good impression of what the underground hypogeum would have been like.
In the 2003 movie The Core, the Colosseum is destroyed by huge bolts of lightning.
The Colosseum was featured as one of the locations of Vitaly‘s travelling circus in the animated film Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (2012).
A scene from the 2008 film Jumper was filmed in the Colosseum.
In the 2003 film The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Lizzie McGuire (Hillary Duff) performed as Isabella Parigi for the Italian Music Awards.

Colosseum seating

The remainder of the present-day exterior of the Colosseum is, in fact, the original interior wall. The surviving part of its monumental façade comprises three stories of superimposed arcades framed by half-columns of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders and surmounted by a podium on which stands a tall attic decorated with Corinthian pilasters, both of which are pierced by windows interspersed at regular intervals. At the second- and third-floor arcades, arches framed statues, probably honoring divinities and other figures from Classical mythology. The north side of the perimeter wall, though still standing, has distinctive triangular brick wedges at each end that are modern additions, having been constructed in the early 19th century to shore up the wall.

Maenianum Primum

Positioned around the top of the attic are 240 mast corbels that originally supported a retractable awning,known as the velarium (a canvas-covered, net-like structure made of ropes, with a hole in the center), that kept the sun and rain off spectators over two-thirds of the arena and sloped down towards the center to catch the wind and provide a breeze for the audience. Working on the velarium are sailors specially enlisted from the Roman naval headquarters at Misenum and housed in the nearby Castra Misenatium.

Maenianum Secundum

The amphitheater was ringed by 80 numbered outer entrances, many of which have disappeared with the collapse of the perimeter wall (only entrances XXIII to LIV still survive) at ground level, 76 of which were used by ordinary spectators. All four axial entrances, richly decorated with painted stucco reliefs (of which fragments survive) consisted of a northern main entrance reserved for the Roman Emperor and his aides and three other axial entrances most likely used by the elite. Special boxes at the north and south ends, for the Emperor and the Vestal Virgins, provide the best views of the arena. They were provided with separate tunnels to permit them to enter and exit the Colosseum without needing to pass through the crowds. A broad platform or podium, for the senatorial class (they were allowed to bring their own chairs), flanked them at the same level

Maenianum Secundum in Legneis

Fragment of an ancient Roman equestrian statue

The maenianum primum, the tier above the senators, was occupied by the non-senatorial noble class or knights (equites) while the next level up, divided into two sections, is the maenianum secundum, originally reserved for ordinary Roman citizens (plebeians). The lower part (the immum) was reserved for wealthy citizens while the upper part (the summum) was for poor citizens. The maenianum secundum in legneis, a level added at the very top of the building during the reign of Domitian (either standing room only or having very steep wooden benches), was a gallery for the common poor, slaves and women. Gravediggers, actors and former gladiators were banned altogether from the Colosseum.

The author

Inscriptions identified the areas reserved for specific groups (boys with their tutors, soldiers on leave, foreign dignitaries, scribes, heralds, priests, etc.) with the names of some 5th century senators still seen carved into the stonework (presumably reserving areas for their use). Stone (and later marble) was provided for the seats of citizens and nobles (presumably they brought their own cushions with them).

L-R: Kyle, Cheska, Jandy and Grace

Curved passages and low walls (praecinctiones or baltei) divided each tier into sections (maeniana) and were further subdivided into cunei, or wedges, by the steps and aisles from the vomitoria. Each row (gradus) of seats was numbered, permitting each individual seat to be exactly designated by its gradus, cuneus, and number.

Hypogeum

The arena (part of it re-floored), comprising a wooden floor covered by sand (harena or arena is the Latin word for sand), covers the hypogeum (literally meaning “underground”), an elaborate two-level subterranean network, built by Emperor Domitian, of tunnels and cages beneath the arena where gladiators and animals were held before contests began. It was connected by underground tunnels to a number of points outside the Colosseum. Caged animals and scenery pieces concealed underneath were provided instant access to the arena by 80 vertical shafts while larger hinged platforms, called hegmata, provided access for elephants and the like.

A museum, dedicated to Eros, is located in the upper floor of the outer wall of the building.

Base of the statue of Praefectus Urbi (Prefect of Rome)

Colosseum: Piazza del Colosseo, 1, 00184 Rome, Italy. Open daily, except January 1 and December 25. Tel: (+39) 06 39967700 (Mondays-Saturdays, 9 AM -1:30 PM and 2:30 -5 PM). Tickets (€2) can also be bought (often avoiding a long queue) at the ticket offices in Via di San Gregorio (Palatine), Largo Salara Vecchia (former Largo Romolo e Remo – Roman Forum) and Via Sacra (Roman Forum, Arco di Tito). The Colosseum, together with the Forum/Palatine Hill ticket, is valid for both.

How to Get There
The Colosseum is located a few hundred yards from Piazza Venezia, and close to the Forum.

On “B” line Metro station Colosseo
“A” line Metro station Manzoni, then two stops of Tram No. 3 going southwards
Bus lines 60, 75, 85, 87, 271, 571, 175, 186, 810, 850, C3, and the electric minibus 117
Tramway Line No. 3.

This travel blog, a diary of the author’s local and international travels, aims to provide the reader with news and information on people, places and events that would interest the avid traveler and tourist. But, it also aims to be much more, providing insights on the wonders of this beautiful country, as well as the world, beyond the strict confines of the city. Have a BLAST seeing old churches, exotic temples, educational museums as well as palm-fringed islands; white sand beaches; thundering waterfalls; placid lakes; fiery sunsets; turquoise seas; cathedral-like caves; swirling rivers; majestic mountains; stupendous, amphitheater-like rice terraces; awesome volcanoes and the like. Get to know the movers and shakers in the tourism industry; find out where to titillate the palate; rejuvenate your body; feed your adrenalin, unwind and relax; satisfy your craving for history and culture; and find out what's being celebrated and where.

BENJAMIN “BENJIE” LAYUG, an architect by profession (he finished his B. S. Architecture degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 1982), is also a copy editor for two publishing houses; travel writer; blogger; architectural historian; author; concert. movie and musical reviewer (for www.pep.ph); and a motivational speaker.

As a free-lance travel writer, he has, in the past, contributed articles to Travel Update, Philippine Daily Inquirer, COLORS, TODAY, 7107 Islands Magazine, Business Day and Bluprint. He currently writes for Artplus Magazine and the Business Mirror.

He is also the author of the following travel books:

A Philippine Odyssey (New Day Publishers, 2005)
Pathfinder’s Travel Guide: Boracay (Great Books Trading, 2006)
A Tourist Guide to Notable Philippine Churches (New Day Publishers, 2007)
A Tourist to Notable Philippine Historical Landmarks, Monuments and Shrines (New Day Publishers, 2010)
A Tourist Guide to Notable Philippine Museums (New Day Publishers, 2012)

Some of his books now appear in the local library shelves of the National Library of the Philippines, De La Salle University, Ateneo de Manila University, University of Sto. Tomas, U.P. Diliman, Centro Escolar University, San Sebastian College, Miriam College, Silliman University, to name a few, as well as internationally at the National Library of Australia and the University of California Berkeley Library.

Now a senior citizen, he is probably one of the oldest, if not the oldest, active travel blogger in the country today. He also has a lifestyle blog called F.Y.I.:Firing Your Imagination (www.firingyourimagination.blogspot.com). Benjie has traveled to two-thirds (53) of the country’s 81 provinces and over 20 countries in 4 continents.