Yesterday was the most beautiful day in Rome. I had two friends from Florence staying with us this weekend (which is lovely because my other three roommates are all out of the city this weekend so 1. I wasn't and alone and 2. we had places for them to sleep besides our jank futon.)
But moving on.
I spent most of my time in Rome surrounded by random Catholic stuff. It's everywhere, there are shrine to just about every Saint on every street corner (except in my neighborhood, it's too new here to really have a Saint thing going on plus when they built my building Mussolini wasn't too into the Catholic thing. I mean he was, just not in that way) which is weird. My life at home is pretty infused with things of that nature but here I seem to dream about random things occurring inside of Churches, and not even churches in Rome either, last night I dreamt that we took a class field trip to see this painting in this church in DC (which I don't think is even RC in reality).
This also means my tolerance towards my guilt is rising. Which is good I suppose.
I took Kahla and Lauren to the top of Saint Peter's this weekend; it was the perfect day for it. The sun was brillant and you could see the whole city from up there; its no wonder everyone here is so in awe of the Catholics, it's so tall up there, so important looking and imposing. Then we hopped into the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine Chapel which was as awe inspiring as I remembered it. We also did the Villa Borghese this weekend which was amazing.
The ugly-ness of the outside of this city is completely made up for by the incredible beauty that seems to lie in wait in every building. Graffiti is plastered over ancient brick that hides painting that I've only seen in my De theology textbooks (Brother David would be so proud) and art history books. They don't have names or sometimes even the name of the artist that painted them but their immortal faces still stare downward at those that look upon them. When I think about how many people have looked at the same work of art as I do it's humbling.
Inside the Borghese yesterday for a moment I was alone in a huge room staring at Bernini's Pluto and Persephone. Just me and this amazingly beautiful statue. I had this complete sense of my insignificance in the world. It was like staring up into space and thinking about how we're all just tiny flecks of star dust and nothing I can ever create in my life will match the brillant and beauty of this one statue. Rome does that to you, one moment you're surrounded by grime and the next you are entranced by something so beautiful your emotions freeze. You're life is forever shifting here, one moment you're surrounded by the bustle of a modern city and the next you're lost in some other world where marble is the most beautiful medium you've ever seen.
No comments:
Post a Comment