I haven’t posted in so long due to extensive travel. However, my trips did involved some culinary extravaganza in places such as Thailand, Japan and Rome (also went to London and the “gastropub” trend is just stupid). Rome has INCREDIBLE cuisine, but I bet living there, you get a bit tired of eating pasta and meat, with the occasional artichoke and eggplant thrown in here and there.

I think I am officially burned out on one of my favorite foods – pasta ala vongole. Never thought I would type those words. When in Rome,  I think I saw about two Indian, a few Ethiopian, and many Chinese restaurants. What New York lacks in history, beauty and SPQR-ness, it does excel in a tremendous amount of diverse cuisines. You can get Senegalese, Ukranian, Vietnamese, Aghanistanian (!), Tibetan, soul food, and tacos at the cart on 14th street any time, day or night. God bless gotham city.

_ SPQR _

_ Via d. Vergini _

_ Foro Traiano _

_ Viale delle Milizie _

Top night down at Paintworks last night for the Get Dring Mobile auction, some great live painting outside, great music and a whole lot of bidding for a great guy. Well, bidding for art to raise money for a great guy, Mike himself of course not being for sale.

It was interesting to see how the bidding went. Some pieces were an absolute steal, other went for far more than you would ever have thought. As a wise man put it last night, ‘a picture’s only worth what someone is willing to pay for it’. Stencil work still seems to be very much in fashion with the buyerati, wonder how much longer that will last.

In total, the auction raised something like £24,500, before you count in the bar receipts, pieces that sold outside of the auction and all sorts. So well on the way to getting Mike’s car sorted then, awesome stuff.

There’s more to come still too, lots of pieces left to be sold on Ebay very soon, including a lovely Will Barras that lots of people were coveting last night, so keep an eye out.

Here’s some photos from it all then, the live painting as it went along, and the works inside the auction as well.

Busy old weekend of stuff coming up, lots of painting across the city and beyond. Some of it you won’t see for a bit, but other bits are more of a social affair.

First up, something that’s got a proper buzz going about it, the results of some hardcore planning and painting, the Triple Drop show by Acer, Dicy and Ziml down at the Centrespace gallery in the centre. It’s a show designed to price work fairly, and it’s looking like being up there as one of the shows of the year. Opening tonight (email invite@tripledrop.co.uk for an invite if you’re quick), then running through until next Tuesday only.

Here’s a few teaser images for you…

Next up…

…over in Montpelier on Saturday, they’re bringing back the Montpelier Bean Feast, a festival from the 1700’s. Lots going on, but of relevance to the blog is that loads of the garage doors up on St Andrews Road are getting painted by a bunch of folk. Line up not confirmed yet, some graf based, some not, but some big names by the look of it. Should be a fun day out.

Also on Saturday, further afield in Weston, there’s a massive load of painting going on at the Weston Paint Jam. There’s been talk of it getting cancelled, but it’s definitely on, painting at the Tropicana. Line up so far is MCL, SPQR, Frisky, Matti, Nine-0, Stickee, Elmo, NathanaelDraws, JK47, Khoi, Kone1972, Dead Posh and Prankz, with a few more in the pipeline too.

Loads on then, open doors day on Saturday too which is always interesting. The weather forecast’s looking dandy for Saturday and Sunday, so get off your computer and go and see real things!

Life is Hetaria

A Tribute to the Imperium!

Music: TRIARII/ORDO ROSARIUS EQUILIBRIO – Roses 4 Rome

Dedicato all’impero romano

SENATVS POPOLVSQVE ROMANVS ,ROMOLVS ET REMVS. romolo e remolo

Foto scattate durante una gita a Roma con i miei amici….scorci del Colosseo con la sua mostra e viste di Roma dall’Altare della Patria….Buona Visione

Impero Romano è un gioco di ruolo online, italiano, completamente gratuito. E’ ambientato negli anni del principato dell’imperatore Marco Aurelio Antonino e del figlio Lucio Vero.

Imperium Civitas II la nueva version de uno de los mejores juegos de estrategia.

Imperium Civitas II The new version of one of the best strategy games.

Trailer dle juego www.juegomania.org

imperium III

During the time of the Roman Republic and extending into the Imperial period, a common way to refer to Rome was Senatus Populusque Romanus, which translates to the “Senate and People of Rome”. This was a moniker both for Rome, the nation-state, and for the government itself, which was supposedly acting with the direct consent of the citizens. At least during the Republic, this wasn’t just words – the people of Rome did have a fair amount of say in how the nation was governed, at least as concerned legislative activities. During the Empire, the name remained as the Emperors were still expected to act upon the will and advice of the people, though this was certainly not always true. Nevertheless, this phrase was used in reference to the nation of Rome for centuries, and was shortened to the initialism SPQR. SPQR appeared on the banners carried into battle by Roman legionnaires and was carved into government buildings. It was, essentially, the ancient Roman equivalent of USA or PRC.

This phrase and this abbreviation, SPQR, date back at least to the first century BC, and possibly as far back as the fifth century. It’s a sequence of letters you’ve probably seen in movie portrayals of ancient Rome. I’ve also seen it in video games set in the same time period. The abbreviation is associated quite strongly with ancient Roman government. I was rather surprised, then, when I noticed that in Rome, today, that four-letter sequence still appears everywhere. Government buildings carry the inscription, as do manhole covers and public notifications. Something as mundane as a paper sign taped to a lamppost informing passersby that the road is closed for repaving two hundred meters ahead and a detour has been marked carries the same moniker as the purple banners flown before the ranks of the feared centurions. When I came to notice these inscriptions everywhere it was a rather surreal realization, that on some level there was a direct continuation of the old Rome to the new. In some small way, the Roman Senate, the Roman Republic still lived on. In fact, SPQR is the city motto and it’s used as it was used in the ancient days to mark the works and presence of the government, acting here on behalf of the people of Rome.

We passed the inscription many times as we made our way through the city on our second day in Rome. That morning we proceeded directly to Vatican City, intending to spend the better part of the day there. Just approaching Vatican City is a rather dramatic experience, as one reaches the far end of Via della Conciliazione on the bank of the Tiber, and looks down towards the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica. The road is wide and clear, and aligned to the front of the Basilica and the obelisk standing in front of it. The road slopes slightly upwards towards Vatican City, and its up this slope that pilgrims (or tourists) must walk to get to their holy site, the face of the Basilica growing wider and taller they approach. It’s a magnificent walk.   To enter Vatican City, one merely crosses the street and passes a row of traffic barricades. The first thing encountered is the vast oval of Piazza San Pietro, or St. Peter’s Square. The oval arrangement of this plaza is oriented with the minor axis parallel to the Basilica, the major axis this forming wingson either side of the facade. Each of these wings is demarcated by colossal colonnades bearing white marble sculptures on the roofs. Those colonnades curve around the rims of the oval, but turn and continue straight forward some distance to form a grand entrance to the Basilica. The great red Egyptian obelisk marks the center of the oval, and at the radii midpoints of the major axis there stand two beautifully carved fountains. That piazza is actually a vast space, and at any time there are a great number of folks walking through it, either entering of exiting the Basilica, or just sitting on the steps before the obelisk, admiring the views.

The colonnades on either side really constrict the view and bring it straight on to the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica. This is a rather peculiar facade for a church, I think, as it appears more like a palace than a cathedral. Made of travertine, the bears a row of columns on the bottom floor supporting what appear to be two more floors of rooms above, each of which bear enormous windows. I say there are three storeys, as it appears on the facade, but make no mistake – the facade is well over forty meters high, much taller than would normally accommodate three floors. The walls are mostly stately sheer travertine, punctuated by the columns and window bays, which bear carved ornamentation giving a very royal European quality, but not the kind of religious authority that might be expected of the holiest site in the world for over a billion Catholics. It really looks less like a basilica, and more like – well, Versailles. In some sense, however, it still bears the required punch – the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica, intact for well over four hundred years, is a very well-known sight, and is what people think of when they think Vatican. For that reason alone, it still definitely evokes the idea of Catholic authority.

To actually enter the Basilica it is necessary to pass through a security gate like that at an airport, with x-ray machines and metal detectors. Passing through this checkpoint, near the northern colonnade of the piazza, brings one through a barricaded passage towards the Basilica’s facade. The security at the checkpoint are not, unfortunately, the famous Swiss guards. These garishly dressed pikemen are present around the entrance of the Basilica, and do seem to serve a security function by standing in the way of entrances off limits to visitors. As a real security force, though, one must question the effectiveness of men with spears dressed like the joker in a deck of cards. However, there are a number of other security personnel, both inside and outside the Basilica that look more like Secret Service than medieval jesters, and I’ll bet they actually carry guns. Entering through the archways on the facade takes one into a sort of vestibule with a ceiling made of huge wooden arch frames, all ornately painted, adorned with carvings, and gilded. What appears to be the entrance of the Basilica is only this portico, the actual entrance lying just beyond, obscured by the massive structure of the facade.

It’s difficult to get a feel for the scale of St. Peter’s Basilica, even upon entering it and beginning to walk down the nave. I think because it’s proportioned so much like a smaller cathedral would be, it’s easy to think that those dimensions must also be of a smaller church. However, this is fallacy – St. Peter’s Basilica is stupendously large, as one realizes when looking down its length, and seeing, as though placed there just for the sake of scale, the people at the far end beneath the dome, standing next to the four mighty piers which hold it up. It then becomes apparent that those piers are about 18 meters wide, and that four of them are required to hold up the dome. It becomes apparent, as well, that from the end of the nave where one observes this, there must be a tremendous distance. And indeed, to the nearest of those gargantuan pillars is well over 100 meters – and 43 meters again to the next pair! The people walking about near the rows of columns on either side of the nave look like comically undersized dolls, and looking up at the carved cherubs and rosettes on the ceiling and around the nave, it’s also apparent that they, too, must be enormous just to be visible from that height. The floor is sheer marble, adorned with tiled pieces of different colors displaying tasteful geometric patterns, also much larger than they appear upon first glance. The vaulted ceiling in the nave rises over 46 meters above that marble floor, and is a visual cacophony of rectangular sections lined with white and carved all around with hopelessly complex rosettes and motifs, all covered in gold. The entablature of the nave is only partly gilded, a gold band going the whole way round with some Latin inscription I don’t understand, while the rest of the white stone (travertine perhaps – it doesn’t look to be marble) is carved into more terribly complicated rosettes and labyrinths, sculptured into foliage, or more humanoid figures, either saints or angels, and all of truly elephantine proportions. The columns as well have cherubic figures carved into them and are adorned with red marble and of course, more gold. The nave, and in fact that entire Basilica is quite well lit by a number of very large windows at the ends of the transept and nave, and along the sides of the nave as well in arched bays above the entablature.

At the end of the nave beneath the dome, and at the center of those four tremendous piers, one sees the high altar of the cathedral, all marble, built over the supposed tomb of St. Peter himself, which is visible in a stairway down under the altar, but not directly accessible by the public. Over that high altar towers a spectacular bronze canopy called simply the Baldachin. The Baldachin appears to be a canopy of sorts, like a pavilion or the like, but made of bronze and standing upon four thick bronze columns. The columns are twisted helically, and decorated with laurels and other symbols, most of which I’m sure have some kind of significance for Catholics or Popes. To me, it all just looks magnificent, the meaning totally lost, but the craftsmanship quite apparent. Some of the finer motifs on the columns, and much of the details and sculpting on the cornice are gilded, naturally, as is the enormous ball and cross at the apex of the canopy structure. The canopy itself it fantastically ornate, with human figures leaning out over observers, holding crosses and sporting wings and the like. The overall design is quite Baroque, with both the naturalistic feel and the propensity to gild things that are hallmarks of that style. Though you will hear it rumored that the bronze ceiling of the Pantheon’s portico was salvaged to build the Baldachin, that bronze was in fact used to fortify the Castel Sant’Angelo just down the street, as I said in the previous post.

And of course, just above the Baldachin is that dome. It’s a shame that the interior of St. Peter’s Basilica is so difficult to handle in its scale. Perhaps the decoration is too busy to get a handle on anything, to be able to focus clearly on any point. The dome is large, that is clear. But just how large is not readily apparent – it certainly doesn’t look higher than the Duomo of Florence or nearly as wide as the Pantheon. However, from the floor of the cathedral to the apex of the dome is well over 100 meters. It sits upon a drum rising more than seventy meters which is in turn supported on the colossal piers, each of which holds marble sculptures, probably of saints, though I can’t be certain. The dome is decorated on the inside by grand paintings, done in sections between the ribs of the dome (which is an ovoid dome much like the Duomo). As usual, I’m not sure what these are really paintings of – there are human figures, possibly saints or angels, and likely some disciples in there as well, and I think that these human figures are what detract actually from the scale of the dome – used as reference, it doesn’t appear that big – however, the figures themselves must be gigantic. They are painted brightly and colorfully, and I have no complaints about the chosen segmented designs which frame different figures. However, there is a lot of gilding. The drum as well is adorned with frescoes and more gold, and a cornice all the way around that stands below a row of large, bright windows is, of course, completely gilded. What a surprise.

Behind the high alter, at the very back of the church there stands another enormous bronze statue, done in the same style as the Baldachin. It is a gigantic reliquary, supposedly containing the papal chair used by St. Peter. (Actually a much later chair that entered the papal repertoire in 857.) This reliquary consists of a ridiculously ornate bronze chair of fantastic size being supported by the hands of four human figures, almost certainly saints. The chair and all four of the humans are very gilded. The chair is adorned with leaf rosettes and twirling symmetrical designs, feeling quite Baroque. Angelic figures, dwarfed by the chair but likely as big as a man, stand in front of and on top of the chair. A background stands behind the chair composes entirely of golden clouds and light beams emanating from the chair, and from a stained glass window, yellow and white, just over the back of the chair. The clouds themselves are also beset with multitudes of angelic figures, fluttering about and looking very busy. It’s all extraordinarily dramatic, and quite a lot of fuss over a chair, but I suppose this St. Peter was quite a guy.

In fact, St. Peter’s Basilica is full of ornate shrines and relics like this, and I don’t know what any of them are. There are some important tombs set up as well to royalty and particularly popular popes, and while these were all exquisitely sculpted and decorated, I can’t say I really understood who any of them were. There is a rather marvelous bronze statue of the man himself, St. Peter, with one foot worn down to a nub from centuries of people kissing it.

Also present in Michaelangelo’s masterpiece, the Pieta, a gorgeous marble sculpture of the dead Christ lying in the arms and lap of the mourning Virgin Mary. Once again, Michaelangelo astounds with his attention to minute details and his ability to realistically portray the human figure, with Jesus’ gaunt frame hanging from Mary’s lap just as one would expect, the limbs bending and drooping naturally, the head hanging back limp, but not contorted. We see again the creases in the skin and the veins exactly where they should be, appearing just as they should. Mary holds Jesus with her arm supporting his shoulders, her hand just below his armpit, and this causes the flesh just around the front of his shoulder to fold up, pushed forward by the weight of Jesus’ body. The way Michaelangelo depicts this seems to me especially realistic, and it gives both figures a fleshy, supple appearance. The folds of Mary’s clothing, voluminous and draped, is also quite variegated and appears quite natural. As with David, there does seem to be a lack of realism in some of the proportions – Mary appears larger than Jesus, which seems unlikely, but not so much larger that she looks ridiculous. Instead, again, this disproportionality enhances the image by allowing Mary to fully encompass and embrace the figure of her dying son – he’s not hanging ludicrously over her tiny lap, as he likely would have done, given their probable relative sizes. This is a fitting place for such a glorious work by Michaelangelo – much of the architecture of the Basilica, including most of the designs for the dome and the floorplan, were conceived by the master himself!

We took our leave of the Basilica through the front again and made our way towards the Vatican Museum. To get to the museum from Piazza San Pietro it is necessary to walk around the north side of Vatican City, along the rather prodigious city wall. The walk is actually fairly long, and a great many people walking with us around the Vatican were becoming confused over whether we were heading the right way or had passed it somehow. There aren’t enough signs to really indicate where, exactly, the entrance is. Intuitively, one might expect it to be near the piazza – Beth and I had expected such, and were ourselves somewhat apprehensive during the long walk. However, sure enough, following the city wall around the north side will eventually get one to the museum entrance, which is fairly unmistakable.

When we first entered the Vatican Museum, Beth and I immediately began searching about for a good map to take with us – at the Louvre, our maps had been indispensable, and we expected a similar experience. Quickly we realized that there were no maps of the Vatican Museum, and we believed then that we would have to rely entirely upon posted signs to find our way around. Previous experience had already indicated that the Italians were not very good about posting useful signage, so we were a bit worried. Our worry, however, was entirely unfounded – the Vatican Museum is kind of like a ride at an amusement park. You get on at the front, and then there is a single path through the museum to the end. You see everything, and it’s almost totally linear, with only a few straight branches at a few points. Maps are not present because maps are not necessary – there’s only one way to go. On the one hand, this is nice because you know you won’t miss anything and you won’t get lost. On the other hand, you won’t miss anything – if you get tired or hungry like we were by the end, you’ve still got a push on to the end, and it would be criminal to just rush through. The Vatican Museum is really fantastic.

There are a number of galleries holding masterworks of painting, with pieces by Raphael, da Vinci, Giotto, and Rubens. Much of this is, of course, religious in nature, but there is also a good selection of mythological works that seem to be a mainstay of Renaissance art. There are also a number of galleries holding objects d’art, such as crowns and watches, adorned with gold and inset designs in ivory and jade. A few galleries contain works of Egyptian antiquity as well, including canopic jars, sculptures of Set and Ramses, and some sarcophagi. As with the Louvre, however, I was most impressed with the sculpture pieces in the museum, of which there are many. The sculpture collection of the Vatican is impressive and very large. Of course there are a number of works by Renaissance artists, including Michaelangelo, but there are also several sculptures of Classical origin. A number of contemporary Roman Imperial busts are displayed, as well as a full-size sculpture of Emperor Augustus, also thought to be contemporary. Again, the mythological plays with the historical and religious in the sculpture galleries, and we get a number of pieces depicting gods and goddesses of antiquity, and busts depicting Emperors as a selected god, a popular practice after an Emperor had died (or during their life, in the case of a few particularly arrogant Emperors). Also present are a number of epitaphs or other ancient inscriptions, as well as a few massive carved sarcophagi, usually of some wealthy Senator or another. A number of excellent bronze pieces also exist, including some very nice lions and a pair of peacocks currently under restoration. Many galleries possess beautifully mosaiced floors as well, with the most interesting segments always roped off for the sake of preservation.

One of the most exciting areas of the museum is the series of rooms simply called the Raphael rooms. These are a cluster of connected chambers bearing frescoes by the famous master and his studio and bear some of the most famous works of Renaissance fresco in the world. The fame of these rooms is well deserved, for these are remarkable paintings, bearing the striking color and contrast that I find so refreshing about Raphael’s work. They are also large enough that a tremendous amount of activity can be fit into these paintings, and it is. Each of the four rooms has a theme, three of them historical, and the fourth most famous Room of the Signatura bearing the theme of wisdom and reason. The historical rooms are exquisite and tell stories which are exciting even with my ignorance of what, exactly, is going on. There is an image that I recognize as the coronation of Charlemagne, and a few battle images, but I’m not certain of the rest. The detail is superb, the quality genuinely mastercraft. The fourth room, however, is my favorite. The Room of the Signatura bears frescoes that have, I feel, a more Classical feel to them, both in style and subject. The gestures and attire of the characters are simple and elegant, the color is rich, and the use of visual metaphor is rampant. One wall carries Raphael’s Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, a wonderfully done work of religious art that metaphorically represents the church spanning both Earth and Heaven. Opposite that is probably Raphael’s most famous work, and possibly one of the most famous frescoes in the world apart from those in the Sistine Chapel, The School of Athens, which is essentially a gigantic who’s who of Classical philosophers. Pythagoras, Aristotle, Plato, Diogenes – they’re all there, as well as Raphael himself peeking out from behind a few scholars at the right edge of the painting.

Shortly after leaving these masterpieces of fresco, one comes to the majestic Sistine Chapel, now a fully incorporated part of the museum. It’s difficult to talk about the Sistine Chapel. For one thing, all of you who read this have almost certainly seen in photography almost everything of interest in the Chapel – you know of Michaelangelo’s famous Genesis scenes on the ceiling, his depictions of the ancestors of Jesus along the wall panels, and his vast fresco, The Last Judgment. On the other hand, it’s rather different to be there and see it all life size, and to try to comprehend just how much work it was to put together these images. It’s insufficient, really, to call the Sistine Chapel a masterpiece – any single panel or fresco could be considered a masterpiece. The paintings are simply too large – surely their existence is impossible, with this level of detail and craftsmanship. The wonder is enhanced when it is considered that the master behind all this work, Michaelangelo, was primarily a sculptor, not a painter. It’s been rumored that a rival of Michaelangelo’s convinced the Pope to commission the work from him in order to humiliate Michaelangelo when he failed to impress with painting. Though probably apocryphal, if the story is true, this rival surely had more than egg on his face – I’d say an omelette.

The Last Judgment is particularly impressive, as it’s so fantastically detailed and busy – there are scores of figures in that work, and each one is doing something, expressing something, saying something. The painting is centered on Jesus, depicted rather differently than normal, lacking beard and appearing quite muscular. He is a wrathful Christ as well, raising an arm over his head as though about to strike. Around him are the host of heaven, with the disciples and saints in clouds at his level, and angels descending from above, carrying the cross on the left and what appears to be a marble column on the right (I don’t understand that part). Below Christ’s level are struggling souls being brought up to Heaven and dragged down to Hell, with demons and angels mingling alike to guide souls to their rightful places. As one might expect during the Apocalypse, everyone appears very confused and frantic, even the saints and angels – a nice change, frankly, from some of the bland serene expressions I see on paintings of saints, even in the face of martyred doom. Again there’s a mingling of the religious and mythological, with the River Styx clearly depicted at floor level, with souls being ferried across to the flaming pit of Hell in the bottom right corner. My only complaint with the painting is that it’s too big to really be able to appreciate the detail put into it – the details near the top are lost completely, being too far away for the human eye to even resolve. The fresco is just that big.

The ceiling panels are exquisite as well, and guide the viewer through the first few chapters of Genesis, from the creation of the Earth in the first panel, through the creation of the animals, to the central panel, the famous Creation of Adam with God bestowing life through the outstretched arm of the reclining Adam. This is followed by panels showing the creation of Eve, and then the Fall and expulsion from Eden. The last few panels seem to show Noah before, during, and after the Flood. However, like The Last Judgment, it’s difficult to fully appreciate these works, as they are just too far overhead to get a good detailed look at. Also, because they are on the ceiling, it’s actually very difficult just to look at them at all – I had to lean back at a ridiculous angle in order to see them in sequence. That being said, the Sistine Chapel is spectacular, and well worth the crick in my neck.

The remaining galleries of the museum include a long hallway adorned with frescoed topographical maps of Italy, showing in great detail and with superb style the various towns and villages of the Italian countryside. One of the last galleries is a series of rooms contained works of modern religious art. I was unimpressed by many of these works, but there are a few thoughtful gems. The abstract nature of so many of these modern pieces seems inappropriate to the supposedly religious nature of their subject. Curiously, there is a Dali piece included in this collection, and while I appreciate Dali’s work, I can’t for the life of me understand why that particular work was deemed religious. But with Dali, who’s to say? Unfortunately as well, Beth and I were getting hungry and tired by this time, and probably not in the best condition to attempt something as rigorous as art appreciation.

The Vatican had consumed the better part of our day, but after a late lunch we still had energy enough to begin wandering again to the north of Rome. We walked down a long street saturated with shopping venues – possibly this was the Roman equivalent of a shopping mall – and ended up at the Piazza del Popolo. This plaza is a square capped on its west and east ends by semicircular segments, forming a cobbled area probably large enough to contain a football field. At the center of this piazza is yet another Egyptian obelisk set upon a pedestal and girded by four fountains at the corners. Each of the semicircular segments of the piazza is defined by a brick wall which demarcated the piazza nicely on either side. The piazza itself contained several hawkers as well as a number of street performers, including a man playing Stairway to Heaven on an electric guitar with an amp that was, I can only presume, battery operated. Just beyond the west end of the piazza is a series of steps, adorned with sculptures of what appear to be gods or Roman soldiers, leading up to another piazza higher up.

This is the Pincian hill, with another piazza set upon it. As we had the previous day, from atop this stairway one gets another excellent view of Rome, though from a totally different angle. The Pincian hill backs up against a vast wooded garden, the gardens of the Villa Borghese. We proceeded through these gardens for hours, and would recommend them as a relaxing and beautiful place to take a long stroll. Near our entrance to the area we witnessed an old water clock, functional for over a hundred years drawing water from a pond at its base. Rows of busts girded walkways where children and adults alike rode in ridiculous pedal-driven carts which could be rented from several locations in the garden. The gardens of Italy differ markedly from those of France, with the observer able to go into the garden to fully experience it. These gardens are also not as meticulously groomed, with grass allowed to have a slightly ragged look, and flowers allowed to grow, bloom, and wilt gracefully without the meddling hands of a gardener plucking away all the imperfection. These gardens feel more alive to me, less like boxes of color and more like actual plants growing from dirt.

Further on in the gardens, the area takes on more the appearance of a park, with maps detailing the locations of lakes, bike paths, and bridges. We quickly became enamored with signage pointing the way to something called a “Bioparco,” which we suspected was just a zoo, but imagined might be something different and perhaps more interesting. In any case, it gave us a direction to head in what turned out to be a very large park with very nicely arranged paths and green areas. I regret that we did not deviate from one of the central boulevards to check out the nice artificial lake, though we were able to see the equestrian stadium near the center, presumably for the same sorts of horse races that have entertained Romans for thousands of years. We passed villas and museums, and eventually found our way to the Bioparco which was, as we suspected, only a zoo. We took a different path to exit the vast park, coming around the southern half which we had not seen walking to the zoo. On our way back we even passed what proved to be a small shrine to the goddess Diana. There is not a part of the gardens of Villa Borghese that is not pleasant and relaxing, and our emergence from the park was met with a bit of regret.

Our second day in Rome was concluded with a light dinner of sandwiches (for our lunch of pizza had been quite large and quite late) eaten near the Trevi Fountain in failing light.