Before telling you about my weekend escapades and the recent revelation of the new love of my life – Michelangelo Mersi da Caravaggio, I would like to devote some space in this entry to describing some of my classmates at the Centro. I have yet to broach this topic, and I am sure you have been wondering about the fabulous cast of 40 classics majors I live with.
I will start with the three ladies that I am talking about when I say in the blog that, “I am doing something with my girlfriends.” My first victim is Mrs. Alex Olsman, my doppelganger (as she describes me) – except about a foot shorter with lovely long dark locks – from PENN. Liz and Ro (Roseann), the other two girls who Alex and I spend most of our time with, respectively hail from Bowdoin and Georgetown. We like to call Liz “Lizzie McGuire,” after the famous teen Disney character who travelled to Roma and found love. Ro, in addition to being a classics major and sporty spice (yes she goes to the park with the boys to play soccer with Italians several times a week), is also premed.
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| Ro, Lizzie McG, Myself and Alex! |
Now I have selected three characters whom I have become particularly fond of.
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| Blount <3 |
1) Blount Stewart
Words do not describe this wonderful human being. Blount (pronounced Blunt) attended the prestigious St. Albans school for boys in the DC area, and now is an undergrad at Columbia University. He and I sit next to each other in ancient Greek and Alex and I gravitate towards him during exploratory field trips, frequently forming a trio. Blount not only sings in one of the most prestigious choirs and works as an usher at Carnegie Hall in New York City, he also plays lacrosse and is a pro at fixing all things that have to do with technology.
2) Caity Caitlin
Caitlin is my roommate at the Centro. She is calm and collected every single moment of every single day, wonderful to talk to and great to have as a buddy, making sure that we get up on time everyday and are ready to go with the correct materials. Unfortunately our only class together is Ancient City. She also wonderfully deals with my random daily rants/outbursts and slightly messy tendencies that take away from room number fourteen’s aesthetic appeal. She and I have started a tradition of going for Sunday night dinners together a restaurant nearby the Centro called Carpe Diem.
Bryan is a crazy body builder who attends the University of Washington. I became particularly fond of Bryan at the wine symposium hosted by the Centro last Friday. I wasn’t having the best of days, arrived slightly late and slid into the chair next to him. We previously hadn’t had much of a chance to chat. After talking his ear off over-dramatically about unimportant issues, he told me I looked lovely (which certainly improved my mood). After taking a small taste of each glass of wine, he would pour the remainder of his cup into mine. He doesn’t drink much because he is very health oriented, so it was a great situation.
I hope that gives you alittle bit more insight! Now back to the usual banter. What I realized this week — ICCS is more then just a program. It is most certainly a privileged cult that accepts new members each semester on a pilgrimage in the mother ship of Rome. I have come to this conclusion because of two experiences. Number one – each student has access to the amazing library of the American Academy at Rome, the home of the best collection of classical works in the entire world to which only PhDs (and rarely graduate students) are granted access. We received a personal tour of the library, which is located in a grand all marble monument in the style of an ancient villa. Second, on our Thursday field trip, we were permitted admission to one of the most well preserved and ostentatious temples (that of Hercules) in the Ancient region of the city called the Forum Boarium (the cow trade market) that is nearly 100 percent of the time gated off. Our entire group stood inside the big black fence that protects the temple from tourists and explored it in peace. It was quite wonderful.
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| Gated inside the premise. |
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| The Round Temple! |
On Friday I spent three and a half hours in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo. Although hindered by a mass and choir practice, my art history professor fought through the noise and gave a wonderful presentation on the monument and its contents. Again I learned about something in depth that I had only formerly studied in textbooks. We walked around the side isles of the massive church for the first two and a half hours, observing various pentagonal chapels of the dell’Rovere family (the famous imperial popes). Our teacher showed us development in the paintings in the church from the medieval period to the High Renaissance style. The climax of the tour was a twenty-minute lecture on the Chigi Chapel – designed and executed by Raphael. Our teacher explained that the Chigi Chapel is the first to be considered proto-Baroque. Up until it, it was common practice for wealthy patrons such as Agostino Chigi (the patron of the temple who at the time was the richest man in the entire world) to have more then one famous artists working on commissions. For example, in Florence at the Medici Courthouse, both Michelangelo and Leonardo were working on various projects – as close as gigantic parallel wall frescos in one room. In the baroque age however, this practice ended and single artists would obtain single commissions. The Chigi Chapel is particularly stunning because Raphael used all three media – painting, sculpture, and architecture – to create a message of salvation after death. God looks down from the oculus (tip top of the dome that covers the chapel), and the very new style obelisk tombs that flank the chapel reach up to him. Raphael was a harmonizing genius, as everything in this tomb works in a symphony to attain the singular message. In the last twenty minutes of our Popolo marathon we observed a niche beside the altarpiece that contained two famous Caravaggio paintings. We did not spend a lot of time talking about the paintings because we haven’t quite finished with our study of the Renaissance yet – but they are the two most beautiful pieces of Art I have seen in my entire life – the Crucifixion of St. Peter and the Conversion of Saul. I cannot wait until we delve into the life of this Caravaggio – a painter currently unknown to me. Alex and I are planning a day trip to the Museum devoted to him in Rome for later this semester.
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| The Crucifixion of Peter |
On Saturday night, I took an adventure with fifteen other centristi to the Olympic Stadium to watch my first soccer match ever, Roma VS Inter! This night was definitely one of the most fun that I have had in Italy. The Olympic stadium and surrounding complex is massive. I couldn’t figure out if the surrounding walls curve over the spectators towards the top, or if this is just an optical illusion. It was a beautiful night (until about 3 minutes after the game when it started pouring rain), and I especially love how the field appears to sit directly under a starry sky. I devoured an Italianized hotdog which was heaven – a typical fenway frank in a focaccia with some sort of cheese, more like a piggy in a blanket on steroids now that I reflect on it. Roma won in the last minute after a long and scoreless hour and a half. Everyone went crazy, singing their hearts out and banging on the walls on our bus ride back saying inappropriate things about Milan. Luckily I was wearing my eight dollar knock-off Jersey so I fit right in. I was slightly disappointed later when I looked up my player (the number on my jersey) and found that he was not the most gorgeous one on the team (like Tom Brady or Beckham). He was slightly short and way too muscular for my taste!
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| Centro girls at the game! Notice the stadium in the backdrop. |
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| Loving my hotdog. |
Arrivaderci amici!!!!
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