Ventunesima Giorno - Palazzo Massimo

We are getting to the end of this crazy journey today I went to Palazzo Massimo a museum with a lot of statues and an entire floor of mosaics. Here are a few things I noticed/learned from there:

• The statues had very intricate and interesting hair ( I went crazy for all the different types of hair)


• During ancient times, in circular tables they would have a hole in the middle and during celebrations they would pour wine into it so that the deceased could participate in the celebrations


• Medusa

Ventesimo Giorno - Caravaggio Hunt

I finally got to do my Caravaggio scavanger hunt today! Rome has SO much Caravaggio that would have been simply silly if I hadn't tryed to see more of it than we did as a group. Even though I didn't get to see as much as I wanted to, it was still a lot of fun.

Alison and I got up early and set out in search of Basilica de San Luigi dei Francesi. We walked around a little bit but eventually found it and right in time for the doors to open! We walked in and saw probably the most famous Caravaggio painting ever, The Calling of Matthew and yes it was totally worth it. After seeing the trifecta of Caravaggio at this church we went in search of Basilica de San' Agostino and with a little more wandering we found it. There we saw Caravaggio's Madonna of Loreto and (though we didn't know about it before we went in), a fresco by Rapheal! It was amazing to be able to walk into what looks like a normal church and be able to see a priceless piece of art. I think that is definitely one of the things about Rome that is so special. You can do things like this any day and it's not a big deal to most people it's just a normal part of life.

Diciannovesimo Giorno - Etruscian Museum and Palazzo Altemps

We were finally able to go the Etruscian and it was pretty interesting. Basically there were a thousands of bowls and urns and plates in pottery and bronze. It was amazing how vivid the imagery on each piece was and how bright the colors still were. These pieces are millions of years old, they are older than roman things because the etruscians came before the romans. There was a lot of images of sphinx's, hercules, Pan, and centaurs(these are mythical creatures that have the torso of a man and legs of a horse, this came from people looking at horseback riders and thinking that they looked like they were part of the horse.) I noticed there was alot of similarities between egyptian art and etruscian art. I also found out that Pan is supposedly the ancient symbol for the devil, in ancient times satrys, (half man - half goat), were considered evil creatures. The jewelry was just as intricate as the pots. It was amazing how ornate they could make tiny pieces of jewerly. I also realized that in general everything in history is inter-connected in some way. It's so interesting to see how everything builds on top of eachother and takes things from eachother and makes it their own. It is all sort of the same and in-turn we are all sort of the same. People really need to realize that more often and it's funny how going to a museum that is dedicated to an ancient extinct civilization made me think about that. This experience really is opening my eyes to more than just religion and art and culture.

In the afternoon I went to palazzo altemps, which is a museum in an old palazzo with a bunch of statues of gods and goddesses and other famous figures. Here are a few things I gleamed from the experience:

• Nymphs followed around dionysus and drank wine etc. with him, they were the original groupies!


• In ancient times, helmets were made with eyes on them so that battle enemies would be fooled and shoot at the helmet and not the real face.


• The image of god the father developed from the image of Zeus


• statues weren't made plainly. Alot of them actually were painted ! ( we found gold specks on one of the statues)


• All palazzo's had their own chapels in there with intricate depictions of flowers and angels.


• The flower is a modified symbol of the sun


• Capricorn is the symbol of the family of Palazzo Altemps because it was all over the chapel and almost every wall painting etc.


• The couples Isis and Horace, as well as Apollo and Artemis are symbols of Mary and Jesus

Quindicesimo-Diciottesimo Giorni - Keep Calm and Carry On

We have reached the point of no return. We are past the middle point of this trip and a lot has happened. Simply put, the past four days were quite eventful. We went on our first real trip outside of Rome to Napoli.

We were all so excited to get out of Rome for a few days, but it turned out to be completely different than we all expected. I don't want to say that it was completely bad, because I think that everything happens for a reason and that you should use every experience you have in life to help make you a better person. You can't go through life dwelling on things that have already happened, you have to learn from every experience and move forward. Live your life to it's fullest and try your hardest to not think about what if's or how you could have changed something that has already happened. Instead try to think of how you will fix it in the present, or move on from it, or avoid doing it/ having it happen again in the future. That is really all you can do, because otherwise you will miss out on life and probably won't be too happy either.

Quattordicesimo Giorno - The Ancient Sebas in his Natrual Enviroment - Ostia Antica

Well, today was quite interesting. We went to Ostia Antica, which is an ancient roman city about half an hour from Rome. There were three major things I got out of the experience:

• The city was a huge place


• It is very dusty(when I got home my hair was literally covered in dust)


• Ancient ruins are basically a big kid playground

We saw 7 major types of structures, the necropolis(city of the dead), shops, the neptune baths, Insula, the theatre, a temple to Mithra, and a Salareum(as well as enough rocks and dust to last a long time.) The Necropolis was right at the beginning and it was like a domus except that the rooms were smaller than normal because it was just a place to go visit your dead loved ones. They were thought to be heavenly rooms, that allowed you to be closer to god and to your beloved dead long after they are gone. Next we came across the shops. You could tell they were shops because they had different little arches and there were many of them side by side. They also had stoa's where people could sit around and preach. For example the apostles, Peter and Paul would probably have done their leather works and then preached afterwards. The neptune baths were public baths that the whole city would use. They had serpents and dragons depicted in mosaics on the floor(it was beautiful and very ornate for a public bath.) Each room would have about 3 feet of water in it and there was a hot room and a cold room, as well as a room called a stringletta where the slaves would scrape your skin and take off excess dirt and oil. The Insula were basically houses and they would go up 3-4 floors, most had only a fire pit and no kitchen. The theatre was probably one the tallest structures in the city. I climbed up to the top of one of the side and had a great view of the entire area. It was similiar to the coliseum except it was a semi circle with the front side being open and the backside having up to 3,000 seats. Theatre was the ancient peoples form of entertainment so everyone would come to see it. Apparently the first two rows had stone chairs for the wealthy and they left spots for muses and gods in those rows as well. As we walked along we stumbled upon a rundown/roped off temple to mithra. Of course a bunch of us jumped over the railing to see inside and found it. The mithra is a god that is always depicted killing a cow. Next we saw a salareum were the ancient people used to lay on their side and on each side of the temple had 30 people eating a meal together. People would lay with their feet facing towards the wall like a sort of couch and the slaves would walk down the middle to serve everyone.

After we saw all these things we explored more and I don't know if it was a mixture of the heat, dust, lack of food and water and sleep or what, but Sebas as well as a lot of the rest of us started to get a little delirious. Sebas started treating Ostia Antica like a personal playground. He was jogging along the cobblestones and then jumping on top of things and jumping off things. It was so entertaining.

Tredicesimo Giorno - Jewish Museo and Tiberna

The past 12 days have been completely filled with activities to do as a group and they have been planned out for us completely, but today was the first time we had the option to go out on our own and do different activites. Aly, Jacob, Katie and I walked all the way to the Etruscian museum, only to find out it was closed, so we decided to switch it up and go to the Jewish Museum instead.

We have been going to so many churches and doing so much christian stuff that it was nice to switch it up and see something completely different. Growing up in New York City, I have been well acquanted with the jewish religion, but the museum was actually really interesting and I learned a lot about Rome in general from it.

Well, Rome has the oldest Jewish community in Europe and the world because in the 2nd century Jews arrived in Rome and Rome is the only city that Jews weren't expelled from during the various wars etc. So the original community is still in Rome, with around 14,000 jews living here currently.

From the beginning of the city, Jews always lived in separate neighborhoods from the christians, but in the 1500's they were forced to move into ghetto's or prison-like neighborhoods. They didn't get emancipated and gain equal rights until the 1870's. By then they finally started to deconstruct the ghetto's and then in 1884 they built the synagoge which is still standing next to the museum as a symbol of emancipation.

It's so interesting that humans no matter who they are want to be superior to someone, so they go about it by persecuting people who are different from them. The Roman's persecuted the Christians, then the Christians persecuted the Jews, the Christians also persecuted the Muslim's during the crusades, and today the jews and muslims are still in conflict. The chain is endless. It is truly a never-ending cycle of persecution. I think humans also always want to be in control of something or someone and by persecuting people they are in control of them and making them feel inferior. It is just sad that people don't learn from there mistakes or at least don't completely learn from their mistakes. History really does repeat itself and learning about the Jews persecution and life in the ghetto's really brought this issue to forfront of my mind.

On a lighter note, by going to the Jewish Museum we got to see a completely new part of the city and we took a bus from right outside the vatican to trastevere and walked across a bridge to the museum. When we were walking across the bridge we realized that we were on the tiberina which is a little island in the middle to the Tevere. There was a little dam that looked a little like a waterfall. It was really cool to explore a different part of the city!

Dodicesimo Giorno - Hey Iggy, Whats up?

Another sunday in Rome. The most memorable parts were going to the ignatius rooms, aka the rooms that St. Ignanius of Loyola lived, worked, wrote, studied in. The Ignatius of Loyola that my school is named after, yea him. Well we got to see his study, a bust of his head and his chapel, which is also the room that he died in. There was definitely something special about being in the same room that Ignatius lived in and died in. We have literally been in so many places that historical figures were, like people that I have read about and learned about, I've been where they lived! It is such a weird and awesome feeling to be able to say that.

After being in the Ignatius rooms, we went right next door to mass in the Basilica de Gesu(Jesuit.) I think this may have been the most beautiful church that I have ever been in. Don't get me wrong St. Peter's Basilica is obviously beautiful as well, but this church was just my personal favorite, I realized this during mass.

As I sat through mass, trying to catch different words in Italian to understand where we were in the mass and going over the past week's events I looked up (also, because you can't leave an Italian church without looking up.) When I looked up I saw something that amazed me. There were statues that were carved into the ceiling and were literally 3D or 4D actually. They were on the ceiling and the sides of the walls, but they weren't into the wall they were freestanding off of the wall. It was breathtaking. The more I looked around the more of these statues I saw, they were all over the ceiling and the upper part of the walls. After I got over the inital amazement I went back to paying close attention to mass, but afterwards I continued to marvel at these structures. They were so unique and exquisitely beautiful.