Italy, 2009

Italy, 2009

Allen and the Colosseum.

If you click on the photo (to enlarge) and look in the crowd to the left,
you will see red-cloaked gladiators mingling with the tourists.
Who can refuse to buy a postcard from a man with a sword?

We arrived in Roma, Italy at 8:30 a.m., which was 2:30 a.m. on our internal clocks, checked into our hotel and slept until late afternoon.


The main features for us in Rome were the historic ruins and old buildings; Florence was for the art. Raphael, Donatello, etc turned out to be real people, not just Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and they created spectacular works of art.

Rome, of course, also had lots of art all over the place as well as in most churches and many fine museums such as the Borghese Gallery and the Vatican Museum.

And fountains were everywhere...

...as were columns.

Rome wasn't built in a day, so we left ourselves some time to see it. We didn't see it all, but after two weeks we finished Rome-ing around and headed for Firenze (Florence).

While staying in Florence we took two day-trips: Pisa and Siena. After a week in Florence, I got art-ed out and we left for Venice.

There was much to do in the cities that we visited during our month in Italy. Every day was filled with exciting and interesting places and the people with whom we interacted were friendly and helpful.

As we wandered the small back streets away from the tourist areas, people would recognize us as tourists (I can't imagine how they were able to tell. We thought that we blended.) and would offer helpful information about local points of interest or tell us stories about some site.






Even our two (that we know of) interactions with pick-pockets (whose attempts we foiled) did not diminish our enthusiasm for Italy but gave us two additional interesting stories.

(See Metro sign to the left.)






We found Judaica in each of the cities that we visited, even Ostia Antica. Information about those places is collected in a single post: Italian Judaica.

Please keep in mind when looking at the photos of various ruins that the dun-colored brick that you see was the under-structure and it was covered with gleaming white marble and often had decorations of bright colors. Most of the original marble was scavenged during the Dark Ages and ground up to make cement. Statues that were considered pagan were also ground up.




When you see photos of statues, please note that the statues were originally painted to look like real people as was this statue of Minerva. Over the years, the paint has worn off and what we now see is the scoured white marble. As Minerva shows, statues are sometimes found with intact paint. (She is missing a glass eye.)






As usual, photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and clicking on the blue words or phrases will bring you to more information and better photos than I could have taken.

After looking at the posts, you may wonder why we did so little in the month that we spent in Italy. For the sake of brevity, we left a lot out, only mentioning our highlights and posted only a small fraction of our nearly 3,000 photos. We're working on an edited version that should be available in a while. If you'd like to see it, let us know.

To see the posts, click on the titles below:

Rome-ing Around

Frenzy in Firenze

Getting Our Feet Wet in Venice

Italian Judaica

The Bocca Dela Verita (Mouth of Truth) is reputed to bite the hand of those who are not telling the truth.

We had a molto bene time in Italy, and that's tutta la verita!

Best wishes for a good spring.

Allen & Sarah

To see the next post in this series, click here.

Rome-ing Around

Rome-ing Around

Main entrance into Rome through the city wall during Imperial times.

Rome, within the ancient walls, is small enough to easily walk to almost everything that most tourists want to see in under an hour. Our hotel was only a few minutes walk from the Colosseum, Imperial Forum and Palatine Hill, the emperors' palace. A half-hour's walk (more or less) would have taken us to Vatican City. In between was the Pantheon, a Roman temple recycled into a Christian church.

Sarah and the Forum Romana

It is a straight walk from the main gate of ancient Rome to the emperor's palace and takes about one-half hour.

We take our time in museums and historic sites, so we only used the 4 euro unlimited Metro day pass on days in which we wanted to see several smaller sites which were not clustered.


Some of the major buildings were saved from destruction because they were turned into churches such as St. Paul (Outside the Wall), the largest church in the world until St. Peter's was built at the Vatican. The Senate House of the Roman Forum became a large church as did the enormous entrance to the Baths of Diocletian. (The rest of the baths are a ruin.)

There are lots of churches in Rome. Sometimes more than one on a block. Almost all of them are exquisitely decorated and free of charge. Not only do the churches contain works of art, they are works of art. You don't have to be Catholic when you go in although they would most likely appreciate it if you were Catholic when you went out.

St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. The nave is about 600 feet long. Michelangelo's Pieta was made when he was 24 years old.









Although not as elaborate as many, San Clemente has something interesting: The 12th-century church was built on top of a 4th-century church which was built on top of a Mithraic temple built over an earlier Roman building. The underground structures were forgotten until discovered in the 19th century. Photos were not allowed, but this link provides better photos than I could have taken.


San Giovanni in Laterano, another great basilica, was the first Christian church in the city of Rome C. 318 C.E.







Even smaller churches have great art.

St. Peter in Chains has Michelangelo's "Moses."

Santa Maria della Vittoria has Bernini's "St. Teresa in Ecstasy."






Basilica San Paolo Fuori le Mura (St. Paul's Outside the Wall) was originally a Roman basilica and the last major construction project of Imperial Rome c. 380 C.E. It was the world's largest Christian church until St. Peter's Basilica was built at the Vatican.

Below is the interior.







Sculpture appears to be everywhere: Greek statues brought from Greece and Greek-style statues made by the Romans; Christian statues made by Romans after Christianity became acceptable (and some from before); more Egyptian obelisks than are in Egypt.











I am sure that I would have appreciated much of what I saw to a better degree if I were better versed in various mythologies. [So many gods, so many saints, so many festivals; so little time.]

One of the museums that we visited on our seven-day Archeologia Pass, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, claims to have the largest collection of Roman statues in the world. We spent a long time there; a very long time.



Rome has four major churches and we visited each one (as well as many others, large and small). The largest was St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. Its nave is the length of two football fields.

St. Peter's is so large that Sarah used binoculars to see details on the ceiling.














A church on the Pilgrim's Tour had an item of religious interest to us: Steps reputedly from Pontius Pilate's residence in Jerusalem. Penitents walk up the steps on their knees saying prayers at each step.

Scala Santa (Holy Stairs)

Ostia AnticaClose enough to Rome to get to by a one euro train ride, we made Ostia Antica a day trip. Ostia Antica was Rome's port on the Mediterranean Sea beginning almost 2,500 years ago. Sea-going vessels were loaded or off-loaded and barges took goods to and from Rome, about 20 miles up the Tiber.

Ostia Antica is many times larger than Pompeii but less well-known even though it had been originally excavated before Pompeii was rediscovered. We suspect that the drama of Vesuvius erupting, burying people and the city, captured people's imaginations making Pompeii better known. Ostia Antica had been abandoned after the 4th century C.E. and dirt slowly covered it.

Today neither cities have artifacts: Ostia Antica's disappeared centuries ago, some taken by the original inhabitants, and Pompeii's are in museums along with casts of the original inhabitants. Neither site has been completely excavated.

Ostia Antica had been Rome's major port city and naval base, reaching a population of more than 100,000. We saw a theatre, tavern, and numerous shops. We saw early apartment houses with multiple stories and no plumbing. We saw extensive baths (the equivalent to today's gym/health club where people participated in sports, then soaked). We saw temples to various gods and the second oldest synagogue in the Jewish Diaspora.

Getting Around Italy

EuroStar

To view the next post in this series, click here

Florence, Pisa and Siena

Frenzy in Firenze

Sarah relaxes in our room.

The building was a monastery about 500 years ago, then a private residence. It became a hotel circa 1950.
Just above Sarah's head, you can see the bottom of a Gothic arch. Our room had two arches and a very tall ceiling.

We came to Florence (Firenze) for the art and did we get a load of art. Buildings are full of it. Art is in the street. Art students are everywhere.

Il Duomo (lit.: The house) dominates the city.Il Duomo has the first dome built since Roman times.
For more photos of Il Duomo, the Baptistry and bell tower click here.

The Medicis were very wealthy and powerful. They were patrons of the arts and used art to impress customers in their various enterprises. Their uffizi (office) was a large building with corridors lined with art. The office building is now the Uffizi Gallery and people order timed tickets months in advance. Business is slow now; we walked up and went in, no line.

Also, no photography is permitted inside. You'll just have to imagine what the best of the likes of Raphael, Leonardo, Botticelli and Donatello looks like (or click on the link above).

On the Uffizi Loggia, Medusa gets it in the neck.

You couldn't see the Gothic arches in the photo of our hotel room, but you can see Gothic arches here.

Ponte Vecchio

An enclosed passageway allowed the Medicis to go from their ufizzi to their palazzo across the Arno on the Ponte Vecchio. Once lined with butcher shops, etc; the Ponte Vecchio is now lined with high-end jewelry shops.





Also in Florence is the Accademia which has Michelangelo's David and some other stuff. Again, no photos permitted.

Nearby (everything is nearby) is the Bargello, a former police station and jail, which also has many fine pieces of art including Donatello's David, the first major nude statue of the Renaissance. Some say that this is the "Gay David."

After several days of looking at art, we took some side trips: Pisa and Siena.

Florence is even smaller than Rome, so we were easily able to walk to all of the sights. Sarah got us a hotel near the train terminal, so it was a snap to make our side trips and relocate to Venice.

Leaning towards Pisa

You know what that is and probably know more about it than you want, so I'm not going to bother to tell you anything, I'm just happy that it didn't fall while I was standing on the wrong side.

Just in case you want to know more and see better photos of the tower and other buildings on the Piazza dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles), click on the blue link.


Medieval Siena
Siena is one of Europe's last remaining medieval towns. We wandered the narrow streets, browsed the shops and just soaked in the atmosphere. We visited the home of St. Catherine. She was beheaded. We saw her head (and thumb).

There were no museums in Siena that we wanted to see [imagine Allen's sigh of relief here], but we did visit the Siena synagogue.

To view the next post in this series, click here.

Getting Our Feet Wet in Venice

Getting our feet wet in Venice

Sarah on the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal

Venice, often said to be one of the prettiest cities in the world, is composed of more than 100 islands in a lagoon. Only one of the islands has cars, which come in by ferry. Boats provide transportation of people and goods through a network of more than 100 narrow canals. Although there are about 400 bridges spanning the canals, only four bridges span the Grand Canal.

To see a street and canal map of Venice showing where we spent most of our time, click here.

To see photos of Venice, click here.

There are fireboats, ambulance boats, garbage boats, police boats, taxi boats, etc. A gondola ride is the Venetian equivalent of a horse and carriage ride through Manhattan's Central Park.

Running about every ten minutes during the day and every half-hour at night, vaporettos are Venice's extensive and inexpensive (except for tourists) public transit system. [An annual unlimited-ride pass costs less than one euro per day for residents. The tourist rate is 6.50 euros for one hour of riding, 16 euros for 12 hours; multiple day and weekly rates are available at slightly better rates.]

A vaporetto on the Grand Canal passes under the famous Rialto Bridge

Some canals are too narrow for these delivery boats, but here on the Grand Canal they are triple parked.

The delivery of goods is labor intensive. The merchandise has to be off-loaded from the boat and loaded onto a hand-cart for delivery somewhere on an island. Not all of the canals are wide enough for the delivery boats, so one sees many hand-carts plying the streets. The increased cost of delivery makes Venice more expensive than most Italian cities.

The canals are not the only place where there is water in Venice. Many of the streets flooded daily starting in November. The wind-driven tides which flood the streets usually end in March, they told us. The water rises more than a meter with each high tide and being low-lying, and still sinking, the islands flood. According to the TV news, this year's flooding (Acqua Alta) is the worst in 20 years.

Popular Piazza San Marco is the lowest spot in town and floods first and worst.

Tourists keep their feet dry by using disposable boots

I told Sarah that I didn't want to portage our suitcases while visiting Venice and wanted a hotel near the train station. Sarah chose well and we were only one bridge away from the Santa Lucia Ferroviaria (train station), and that bridge has a handicap ramp for our several wheelies.

Sarah shares a "table" with some pigeons in Piazza San Marco

When we first got to Venice and saw the empty tables along the streets, we thought that we had missed the early-day vendors. It was when we couldn't get down our street due to flooding that we discovered that the "tables" were the temporary walkways.

Sarah uses a temporary walkway in Piazza San Marco
(same spot as the above photo)

The temporary walkways are only on major streets, vaporetto landings and Piazza San Marco [St. Mark's Square], the major tourist destination. There is flooding on some secondary streets, but no walkways. Venetians wear galoshes and/or know what streets stay dry(er).

One morning we got out late and found that the small plaza where our hotel was located was under water. We had to stay in our room for an extra hour until the waters subsided.

We didn't visit too many museums or churches in Venice because the city itself was the attraction. We enjoyed wandering the streets and narrow alleyways.

One evening we were lost in a warren of narrow streets for about two hours. Streets often end in walls, gates or canals. (Real men don't ask for directions, but my woman gave up and asked.)

Venice is a pedestrian paradise: A car-free city which is best explored by foot.

Piazza San Marco as seen from the bell tower of San Giorgio Maggiore

Church of San Giorgio Maggiore as seen across Baie San Marco











We did, of course, visit Piazza San Marco and went into Basilica San Marco and took the Doge's Palace "Secret Itineraries Tour." The guided tour goes through rooms not included in the general admission. We were taken to the judges' chambers, torture rooms, secret passages and cells for political prisoners. [Limited to 25 people at a time, our tour had only three people in addition to us.] [Great photos in the Doge's Palace link above, check it out.]


We rode vaporettos completely around the major islands, up and down the Grand Canal (by day and by night) and visited the islands of Murano (glass factories) and Burano (lace-making). We got our money's worth on our 36 hour transit pass. The rest of our week in Venice we walked; distances are small and you can only see the waterfront from the boats.




The island of Burano is known for its colorful homes and its hand-made lace.

The view the next post in this series, click here.

Italian Judaica

Moses is shown having horns (left) or rays emanating from his head

There were many examples of Jews in Roman art. Most were biblical figures. Prophets were popular for church statuary. Common scenes were David (with and without the head of Goliath) and Judith with the head of Holofernes (severed or in the process of becoming so).

We saw Holocaust memorials in each of the major cities that we visited. Some were erected by the Jewish community, some by the government.
Below we describe what we found in several cities:

Ostia Antica: Although the town of Ostia Antica had been excavated for more than a century, it wasn't until 1961, while widening the road to Rome's airport, that the synagogue was discovered. Built at the end of the 1st century C.E. when Ostia had about 50,000 inhabitants, this is the oldest known synagogue in western Europe. [Ostia's population eventually reaches about 100,000.]

First-century synagogue in Ostia Antica

Compared with the Mithraic temple in the heart of town, the Ostia synagogue was much larger and more elaborate.

The Ostia synagogue is the excavation furthest from the entrance, so it is quite a hike.

We were surprised to discover that a modern art exhibit at the Ostia synagogue ruin was due to open a few days after our visit. "ARTEINMEMORIA 2009" exhibits the works of Jewish artists of the Diaspora. Workmen were finishing the installation while we were there. (After you access the "Arteinmemoria" website using my link, click on 'AVANTI' in the 'FOTOGALLERIA' to see 9 photos.) We discussed some of the works with museum staff members who were overseeing the installation. The non-Jewish staffers had questions for us when they realized that we were reading the Hebrew lettering on the artwork.

If there are some anachronistic items in our photos, such as the ladder with Hebrew lettering leaning against the Aron Kodesh (Holy Ark), know that they haven't been there for centuries. The ladder is one of the works of art.

Sarah (above) stands in the synagogue's entry room. The mikvah is to her right, the kitchen to her left.

Allen and Sarah (below left) stand before the Aron Kodesh.
Detail of the column caps flanking the Aron Kodesh. (below right)

Sarah reflects in front of the Aron Kodesh.
(A plastic bag covers a temporary piece of art.)

Venice: The term ghetto is from the Italian word for a foundry. The first ghetto was in Venice on an island where a foundry had been located.

One of the bridges of Gheto Novo (right)

Beginning in 1516, the Jewish community was restricted to an island. The bridges were locked at night and all residents, except for physicians, had to be in the Ghetto on pain of death. When leaving the Ghetto during the day, Jews were required to wear a distinctive article of clothing such as a red or yellow hat or scarf. [Photos of the Venice Ghetto.]

Our hotel was on an island adjacent to the Ghetto and we made short walks to the Ghetto several times. There are shops selling Judaica, kosher groceries & meat, a kosher bakery and kosher restaurants. There is a kosher hotel, a senior center and a Jewish museum which gives tours of several of the synagogues.

Two of the five original synagogues, all dating to the 1500s, are still in operation. I attended services in a recent store-front synagogue on the square operated by the Lubavitch and we toured three of the historic synagogues. The Spanish synagogue is Europe's oldest continuously functioning synagogue.

Unlike the ghettos in other Italian cities, most of the original Ghetto of Venice remains intact although the walls were torn down more than a century ago. Few of today's Ghetto area residents are Jewish; most of the Jews live elsewhere.

Venice 'skyscrapers'

Buildings are taller here than in other parts of the city. Since people could not move to other islands, they had to build up to accommodate increasing populations. Early 'skyscrapers': six stories.




Florence: There is nothing left of the Ghetto in Florence. The Great Synagogue of Florence, Tempio Maggiore, built after the emancipation of the Jews in the 1800s, boasts the second tallest dome in the city (after Il Duomo). The building's size and elaborate interior reflect the pride of the Jewish community in their new freedoms.

We saw a model of the Florence Ghetto in the museum which is part of the synagogue. As one might expect, the small ghetto became increasingly crowded as the population grew, but the walls did not expand. Like the Jews in Venice, they built up.

The 1800s Florence Synagogue is still in use.

Rome:




The Arch of Titus (left and below) celebrates the Roman conquest of Judea. The relief on the inner surface shows the spoils of the war being brought to Rome.

The Jewish captives shown on the relief became the slaves that built the Colosseum.









The Jewish presence in Rome date to 161 B.C.E.; the oldest in Europe.

Only a single street of housing from Rome's Ghetto remains and it is indistinguishable from other nearby housing. The Jews were required to sell their homes and move to a swampy area along the Tiber. They were not allowed to own their Ghetto homes but had to rent. A more recently built retaining wall protects the area from flooding today.

Jews of the Ghetto were only allowed a single synagogue. Since there were Jews of different traditions (Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Roman), five synagogues were built in a single building. That building, Cinque Scole (Five Synagogues), was torn down in 1908, a few years after the new Tempio Israelitico (right) was built.

Rome has the largest Jewish community in Italy. Several kosher restaurants and food shops are found in the piazza near the synagogue.

Most of Rome's Jews do not live in the area of the Ghetto. Half of Italy's 35,000 Jews live in Rome.










On the other side of the Tiber from the Ghetto, we found Rome's first synagogue (circa 1000 C.E.). It is now a restaurant. One can still see the Hebrew inscriptions on the columns (with binoculars). It was abandoned when the congregants were forced into the Ghetto 500 years later.













Siena: The small Jewish community still has its 1786 synagogue. There is a chazzan, but no rabbi. They rarely get a minyan.

Although elaborate on the inside, from the outside the synagogue appears to be just another building
in order to not attract attention.

There was no scheduled tour for that day, but the chazzan's wife was there and she showed us around. She was originally from Bologna and we had the opportunity to sit in the sanctuary and chat with her about Jewish life in Italy.

Pisa: We didn't look for the synagogue in Pisa, but we found the Cimitero Ebraica just outside of the city wall. There are two entrances from the Piazza dei Miracoli [Field of Miracles] where the leaning tower is located. The cemetery dates back to 1648 and is one of the oldest in Europe.