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Report 567: Boleskine Fall 2004 Trip to Rome and Surrounding Area

By Boleskine from NJ, Fall 2004

Page 4 of 6: 10 October Rome - Villa Borghese

After our usual hearty breakfast, we pile into the van with Andrew for our second trip to Rome. The Metro begins at Anagnina, where, because it is Sunday, we have a choice of parking places in a large empty lot. We all get seats near one another and start the journey to Spagna, the stop for the Spanish Steps which some of us feel a need to see. The first stop we come to is Cinecitta', and I am tempted to get off to see if there is anything to see at Fellini's famous studios. I ponder on the irony of being on a train going to Rome and thinking about Fellini and how he used trains as images in his films. I mull on this for much of the rest of the journey as the train becomes ever more crowded. I try rerunning my favorite Fellini scenes through my head, but I keep confusing them with the scenes on the train on which I am sitting.

When we reach the Spanish Steps, I rather wish we hadn't bothered. Today, the steps are gray and devoid of the large pots of brightly colored flowers that have made them so stunningly bright and memorable on our previous visits; there is not a flower or even a speck of color anywhere in sight. In addition, the facade of Trinita' dei Monti, the church at the top of the steps, is completely covered by a large banner with a photograph of Gandhi, which, obviously is there to hide scaffolding and probably to give some publicity to the company underwriting the restoration. The steps, which had been built, to provide a grand access route to the church and to link it with the Piazza di Spagna, look forlorn, with no one sitting or standing on them, just a few tourists plodding their way up or down. The most interesting things in the area are the pretty horse drawn carriages lined up to take tourists around the city.

The rest of our group wants to climb the steps and walk to the Borghese. I am feelng strangely short of breath and tired, and having clmbed the steps in bright sunshine, picking my way around huge pots of pink and purple flowers, exotically dressed vendors, and laughing, chattering, sun bathing visitors, I prefer to hold on to my memories and what little energy I have and so we take a taxi directly to the Borghese.

We asked to be dropped near the museum entrance, but, then, because we have so much time, we decide to take a tram ride all around the park. It is very hard to write about the Villa Borghese and not use the word "magnificent" repeatedly. The villa and the park were built in 1605 for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, a nephew of Pope Paul V. The park was the first of its kind to be built in Rome and is still the most extensive park in the center of the city. The Pincio, the Villa Giula and the Villa Borghese are all included in this an area of 688 hectares. When the park was created, it contained over 400 trees, mainly pines and was decorated with garden scultures made by Pietro Bernini, father of the famous sculptor, Gian. The dramatic water effects were designed by the aptly named Giovanni Fontana.. Today the park is crisscrossed with paths and wide avenues lined with pines, oaks and many other trees as well as an abundance of terraces, statues and fountains.

In the 18th Century, Prince Marcantonio Borghese brought Jacob More over from Edinburgh to design the glorious gardens. In the early part of the 19th century, Marcantonio's son, Prince Camillo Borghese, whose wife was Pauline Bonaparte, gathered the family's art collection and displayed it in the Casino Borghese, which is now the home of the Museo e Galleria Borghese. The park was also enlarged by the addition of the Giustiniani Gardens. In 1901, the property was turned over to the city of Rome.

Within a circumference of four miles, there are now museums, galleries, a zoo, a school of archaeology, foreign academies, a riding school, an amphitheater, an aviary, an artificial lake and as well as the aformentoned dazzling assortment of fountains, terraces, gazebos, and Neo-classical statues. In the midst of a Roman summer, the sparkling fountains and long shady pathways must offer a sweet respite from the sun and the heat. While enjoying the tram on this drizzly humid October day, we see formally dressed equestrians riding impeccably groomed horses past statues of Byron, Goethe and Victor Hugo. I wonder if the horses, passing the statue of King Umberto I astride his marble steed, recognize a long gone relative.

Bamboo and banana trees grow around the lake, which on a sunny day would be dotted with row boats. The original Tritons from the Fontana del Moro in the Piazza Navona reside here too. Their place in the fountain was taken by copies in the 19th century. The pretty Villa Giulia houses the Etruscan and pre-Roman collection while the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna contains the museum's collection of 19th and 20th century paintings.

Cardinal Scipone not only commissioned a number of sculptures from the young Bernini many of which are considered his finest works, he opened the park to the public. Anyone can enter the park and stroll around the grounds or sit on a bench and watch the passersby, but admission to the museum is by reservation only. The Museo and Galleria Borghese is the only mueum in Rome in which it is obligatory to book your visit in advance, and happily we have done so, because the policy is adhered to strictly. We have tickets for 3:00 and are expected to be out by 5:00.

Before and after our tram ride around the park, we sit on marble benches and watch the other people coming and going. A man with three small dogs is talking to a man with a Doberman. The four dogs are chasing one another around the grass. Suddenly the Doberman and one of the smaller dogs are no longer playing; they are fighting in earnest. The man picks up his small friend and sits near us holding him and stroking him. The man with the Doberman, catches him nad calms him, and then comes over to his friend, and they resume talking. Much later when we come out of the Borghese, we see the Doberman guy talking to several police officers. Eventually he leaves with his dog still running loose along side him.

After our tram ride, it is time for lunch. We have already joined our group, in fact we saw them entering the park on foot as we rolled by on our little tram, and we enter the small door at the front side of the main entrance where there are toilets, a cafeteria and a gift shop. We snag a table for two against a column and study at the menu. This turns out to be a waste of time since it seems all wecan order is pizza Romana. I ask if it is possible to get it without cheese, and our waitress says she will check. She returns and asks me if I eat potatoes. I say I do, and she leaves again. A short tme later Martin gets a large folded over slice of pizza with bresaeola on it, and I get what looks like a thick slab of foccaccia. Mine is much better than his so we order another one to share. The potato version is gone, but we get an even better one mae with egg plant. I have no idea exactly what we are eating; why it is not on the menu, nor why we were lucky enough to get it, but we are vey pleased with our lunch.

Since the cafeteria is crowded and tables are at a premium, we go back outside when we are done eating, and stand on the steps to await the opening of the doors for the afternoon session at the Borghese. The casino Borghese was designed by Flamino Ponzio; when Ponzio died in 1613, his work was carried on by Jan Van Santen. The builing was furthered altered for Marcantonio IV Borgehese in 1775-1790 when the interior decoration was done by Antonio Asprucci and Christopher Unterberger.

Much of the sculpture collection was sold to Napoleon by his brother-in-law, Camillo Borghese, and those pieces can now be found in the Louvre. The paintings were housed near the Tiber in the Palazzo Borghese for nearly two centuries, but they were brought to the Casino Borghese in 1891. The collections were acquired by the state in 1902.

After adiring the statues and urns on the steps, we finally enter through the main doors and find ourselves in the Salone. The Salone has a ceiling fresco by Mariano Rossi; there are fragments of a Roman mosaic, AD 320, depicting gladiators and wild animals recovered from Terrenova in 1834. The Salone is filled with sculputre. Among them is Bernini's Truth, which was sculpted for his own palazzo on the Via Corso in 1645 and was left unfinished. A fragment of marble found in Rome in 1980 is thought by some scholars to be Michelangelo's first version of Christ's head for the 4th Pieta, which is known as the Rondanini Pieta. This last of the four Michelagnelo Pietas is scorned by some, but it has always appealed greatly to me, and we try to see it whenever we go to Milan.

Also in the salone, there are two huge heads: one of of Hadrian and the other of Antonius Pius as well as a very large figure of a Satyr and statues of Augustus and Bacchus. Moving on to Room I, we encounter one of my favorite figures. It is by Canova, whom we know very well from Venice, and it is a figure of Pauline Borghese depicted as Venus Victrix. Two other sculptures that catch my eye are Cupid Riding on an Eagle attributed to Piero Bernini and A Herm of Bacchus by Luigi Valadier. How I wish photography was permitted here.

Room II contains Bernini's David, a sculpture I adore. Carved when the sculptor was 25, the face is said to be a self-portrait. What I love about this David, though, is that this is a Semitic looking virile young man. His arms and legs look as though very large figure of a Satyrthey belonged to someone who scrambled up and down rocky slopes tending his sheep. This David is a mensch; he looks strong and angry enough to heave a rock at Goliath and do him in with it. I really love this guy.

We also admire an ornate sarcophagus from 160 AD showing the Labors of Hercules and several paintings including one from the school of Caravaggio, Still Life with Birds. Hot on the trail of more Bernini's, we charge into the next room, which holds Bernini's Apollo and Daphne. There are some paintings, but I only have eyes for the sculpture. Daphne and Apollo and The Rape of Persephone in the next room are sculptures of stories that are replete with violence and yet they are so magnificent it is hard not to stand and stare at them in wonder. You can see the indentation the agressor's fingers have made in the tender female flesh,; you can see lust, anger, terror, revulsion all captured so perfectly that thte horrifying becomes for the moment beautiful.

Ii is difficut to move on, but we do and in Room IV we find 17th century busts of Roman Emperors in alabaster and porhyry, and marbles vases. There are also two bronzes, one a replica of the Farnese Bull and one of Neptune, part of a fountain the rest of which is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, but truth be told I only have eyes for the Berninis.

The Hermaphrodite is the star of Room V despite some competition from a bust of Agrippa the Elder. which dates from the first century, a head of Aphrodite, and a 3rd century BC mosaic fishing scene on the floor, which makes me want to yell, "Everyone out! I want to see the floor free of feet!"

Bernini was only 15 when, with the help of his father, he carved the statue of Aeneas and Anchises; another statue at which I could look for a very long time not just because of its power but because it sends me down a spiral staircase of memories going all the way back to high school Latin class.

Room VII contains The Dancing Satyr, a 2nd century copy of the Lysippus original, discovered in 1824 at Monte Cavo. This room is also a treasure trove of Caravaggio's. Il Bacchino Malato, aka Boy Crowned with Ivy hangs here as does the 1595, Boy with a Basket of Fruit, and The Madonna of the Palafrenieri done some ten eyars later. We also sigh over St, Jerome, John the Baptist and David with the Head of Goliath. Baglione's, Judith Holding the Head of Holofernes hangs here as does Cigol's Joseph and Potiphar's Wife and two paintings by d'Arpino. Now is that not a roomful of paintings!

Up a spiral staircase, there is also a tiny circular elevator, we revel in the Raphael's in Room IX: The Deposition, Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn, Portrait of a Man and a portrait of Pope Julius II. There are also two Perugino's and a Botticelli. Rooms X, XI, XII and XIII are filled with gorgeous paintings by well and lesser kown artist, but we keep moving albeit slowly until we reach room XIV and another Bernini. This is his earliest known work, The Goat Amalthea done in 1615. It shows Zeus as a child playing with a small faun. Two marble portrait busts of Cardinal Scipione Borghese are in the room along with the terracotta model for the equestrian statue of Louis XIV and Alessandro Algradi's black marble putto entitled Il Sonno. Among the paintings are two self portraits by Bernini done about ten years apart and another painting called Portrait of a Boy. Guido Reni's Moses with the Tablets of Law is another of the paintings in this room in which we spend quie a bit of time. I keep waiting to hear a voice announcing, "But wait! There's more."

As fans of the book, Miss Garnett's Angel, we enjoy seeing Savoldo's Tobias and the Angel which hangs in the next room. When we reach the last room on the floor we work our way backwards through the museum so we can pay a second visit to our favorite pieces. Between the Caravaggio's and the Bernini's it is hard to say goodbye. Outside, we explore the formal garden in the back of he musuem; some of the sculptures are quite beautiful; others are bizarre to the point of being almost grotesque. One female figure has feet so large and so ugly they seem to have come from a different statue. I take a separate photo of the feet feeling my own rather large and ugly tootsies squiriming in embarassement.

Martin has organized enough taxis to take us all to the subway near the Piazza Popolo we can begin our journey back to the casale. At the Piazza dei Popolo, we stop to admire the huge square, which the guide book points out, is actually an oval. We are dropped at the end of the Via del Corso near the matching domes of the two churches, Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria di Montesanto. Martin and I gravitate to the Egyptian Obelisk, which Pope Sixtus V had erected in the center of the piazza in 1589. The obelisk had originally been brought to Rome from Heliopolis in Egypt by Augustus. It originally stood in the Circus Maximus where it was dedicated to the sun. The obelisk is 24 centimeters high and is covered in hieroglyphics which recount the feats of two Pharoahs, Rameses II and Merenptah. The obelisk rises between four fountains topped with lions by Valadier.

Nearly a century later, Pope Alexander VII commissioned Carlo Rainaldi to build the twin Santa Marias. The facades of this pair of Baroque churches were modified by both Bernini and Fontana. On the sides of the piazza are two very large fountains. On one side we see Neptune with two tritons, and across from Neptune, there is Rome situated between the Tiber and the Anio. Both groups of figures were carved by Giovanni Ceccarini in the nineteenth century. At the ends are more statues representing the Four Seasons.

In the 19th century, Giuseppe Valadier, who also designed the Pincio Gardens, turned the piazza into the great oval it is today. He encased Santa Maria del Popolo in a neoclassical shell so that its south facade would match the appearance of rest of the buildings. Today we see children playing, lovers working arm in arm, and older people enjoying the fountains and sculptures that surround the piazza, but it was not always a tranquil or even happy place. For centuries it wa a place of public executions, the last one have been performed in 1826. Another example of the barbaric acitvity that took place here in earlier times, were riderless horse races, with the horses being forced by a variety of cruel methods to run ever faster down the Via del Corso.

The syndrome known as tour frustration is setting in; we are on a schedule and cannot investigate either the Piazza or any of the surrounding churches, not all of which are open, because we are due back at the casale for dinner. We pass through the Porta del Popolo which stands where once the Porta Flaminia rose and through which almost every important visitor to Rome passed on arrival. The outer face of the gateway was designed by Michelangelo but was executed by Nanni di Baccio Bigio in 1561; the two side arches were opened in 1879.

My favorite Porta del Popolo story is about Queen Christina of Sweden, who, in 1654, abdicated her throne and converted to Catholicism. In 1655, she went to Rome and entered the city through the Porta del Popolo dressed as an Amazon riding on a horse. In her honor the inner facade of the Porta was redesigned by her close friend, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Christina became a resident of Rome under the protection of the Pope, and became an important intellectual figure receiving writers and artists in her palazzo until her death in 1689.

We make our way to the Metro, and begin the long ride back to Anginina. We are all in the same car, and once we are out of the center of the city we all have seats so it is a pleasant ride. Andrew drives us back to the Casale where we enjoy ravioli and veal stew for dinner.

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Trip Report Pages

5,6,7 October - Departure from US, Arrival in Italy and first two days at Casale

Vatican Museum

9 October Villa D'Este, Vendemmia Celebration, Palestrina

10 October Rome - Villa Borghese

11 and 12 October Orvieto, Civita di Bagnoregio and Death by Feathers

13 and 14 October - Ostia Antica and heading Home

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Report 567: Boleskine Fall 2004 Trip to Rome and Surrounding Area

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