Tangentially related since the article describes the underlying Temple of Mithras -- the newly reconstructed London Mithraeum opens free to the public (tickets required) on Nov 14. Check it out if you're in London!
yes true, but I think he is disagreeing with the word choice as it makes it seem like the Mayor was doing a bad thing. It would be more neutral to say he restored it or even removed it but destroyed has a negative connotation.
I love Rome but I don't feel it's one of the more grueling cities to visit. I guess if you have to fit in everything in a couple of days it can be. We had three, we skipped the Forum and the Vatican Museum but did visit the Galleria Colonna.
I love history and this article presented the history of Rome in a captivating way. I really like how the author described the layers going down, but then tied all the stories together through time back to the present, including the current issue. I also like how the settlement patterns and succession of religions can explain the current layout of the city.
I know Paris better than Rome, and it is similar, just not as many layers deep. From the castle walls under the Louvre [1] down to the curved walls in downstairs bathrooms (a little restaurant near Notre Dame, likely just an old cellar, and probably only 400 years old, not 2000). And before you dismiss the history as happening only in Europe and only centuries ago, San Francisco once moved its cemeteries along the old main road out of town (Colma along El Camino Real) and Seattle already has a second layer [2]. History repeats itself, or rather humans are the same, with the same habits and patterns (like that other thread about a one star review on a Sumerian clay tablet [3]).
Another interesting story about Rome: because of all the layers of history, and the richness of Ancient Rome, artifacts have been unearthed for years. Imagine living in the 1500's or 1600's and hearing about a great statue that was unearthed, and much finer than most anything existing at the time. This was the case of Laocoön and his Sons (1506) [4] and the Dying Gaul (early 1600's) [5]--their rediscovery is part of our history. Of course, Roman statues are still unearthed all over the old Roman Empire to this day. In an odd twist, so much time has passed that old collections of Roman art have been lost again and then recovered recently [6].
For our 10th wedding anniversary this past summer we went to Rome and a few other parts of Italy. Our tour guide took us through the Basilica of San Clemente so it was a treat to read this article. This was on our second day of our trip and realizing just how much history is in the city is a paradigm shift from being a 3rd generation immigrant from the states.
What really stuck with me was:
"...a slab with a Roman pagan funerary inscription on one side which was re-used and has an early Christian inscription on the other side, in much cruder lettering."
It's about 3 inches thick, 15 inches tall and 3-4 feet long. It is mounted so it can be easily rotated. On one side the letters are chiseled out to perfection. The spacing is perfect, all the edges crisp and the angle of the cuts identical. The flip side looks like a 6 year old with a dull crayon scrawled out the letters on a blank sheet. The first letters are jammed together and then continue to get farther apart to the right and the next line does the same. This side was carved more than 200 years after the flip side.
Civilizations rise and fall and with them knowledge and skills are lost and rediscovered.
When we first entered the church our guide pointed to the uneven floor and later the 2 row of columns are not symmetrical. One sits a few feet farther from the wall than the other side. The reason is the arrangement of the supporting walls underneath. I forget the exact reason the floor is uneven other than something with the archways underneath. The author notes this and how the columns themselves are not identical and were looted from different sources.
The St. Peter's Baldachin is a lot of bronze. Although not confirmed the source may have been the Pantheon which was stripped of it's brass in 1625. The 16 pillars or pronaos of the Pantheon are 60 tons each. They were quarried in egypt ~110AD. Every building has a story behind it.
Visiting Rome:
My wife wanted the tour guide, I was less than excited about the whole idea. My wife was right and I openly admit I was totally wrong. I'm into history and my wife is into art and we're both Catholic so having a tour guide who knew where to go and could tie what we were seeing with our interests, walk us through the history of the city, and point out the idiosyncrasies like the author in this article all combined and added dimension and depth to the experience that was priceless.
If this article is what turns your crank I'd suggest a tour guide.
My wife and I are not the typical tourists as our 3 different tour guides all noted. We didn't take pictures because postcards, shopping was limited to Venezia save holy medals and other items to be blessed, we were filling in our knowledge Roman and Church history with details few would be interested in, and there were parts we'd ask to skip to spend more time in areas of interest to us. For example, we skipped parts of the Vatican Museum to focus on others and didn't need a tour guide inside St. Peter's Basilica so we extended our time in the Vatican Museum.
