When in Rome-4

Pasta and pesto were acquired last night to form the basis of our first self-cooked Roman meal. Great fun. Our landlady provided us with a stack of English-Italian movies and we tried watching La Dolce Vita but alas, it didn't work and we couldn't even stream it from Amazon. It's difficult to signal the market with profit-data when I have no outlet for my cash-flow. Give me instant foreign film access anywhere in the world. So instead, we watched Roman Holiday which was a hoot.

This morning Stephen was a little sunbeam, albeit a sunbeam that still throws up on me like clockwork. Oh, let the record also show that he woke up at five in the morning and fell back asleep while I could not. So that was fun.

Catherine had an appointment at the Greg for noon so we had some time for exploring. We went back to the Piazza Navona to look at the remarkable fountain and the Church of St. Agnes. Actually, there are three fountains and they are all pretty awesome. The middle one, at least, is by Bernini and represents four major rivers including the Nile (whose face is covered because the source had not yet been discovered). And, like so many random places in Rome, it's topped with an obelisk. A legit Egyptian obelisk? Why? Caesars or maybe Napoleon. I mean, if you're the boss of the world, wouldn't you steal a pillar with hieroglyphs? I guess Augustus had to top Julius' mid-life Cleopatra crisis with the archaeological equivalent of a Ferrari. Different times.

Also, saw a dude leading a tour around a telling amusing stories about Bernini being a class clown. Turns out it was a professor of theology from the Augustine Institute who works with our friend John Seahorn. Profile here: https://www.augustineinstitute.org/faculty/sri/ He talked  with us for a little bit while we were all in St. Agnes' church (which is stunning but we were not allowed to take pictures... so I guess visualization is up to you on this one.) Anyway, hope we see Professor Dude Sri again.

And before I forget, this time of wandering brought us (accidentally) to my favorite moment of the day. Discovering the French church of King Saint Louis.

Besides awesome statues of King Louis and Joan of Arc (still no pictures allowed, sorry. I didn't feel like breaking the rules that close to guards with automatic weapons. A semi-regular sight in the city of infinite embassies...) there was a glorious side chapel devoted to St. Matthew with a triptych of Caravaggio's. Not prints. Not copies. The real deal. The calling of Matthew, his writing of the inspired sacred Gospel, and his martyrdom. As Gadamer tells us, museums are the inventions of Enlightenment shmucks (maybe he doesn't say 'shmucks'). Real art should be experienced as a function of something greater than art. Bottom line: breath-taking and prayer-inducing to encounter such an integrated sacred space. Here are the images contained within a tiny side-chapel.

 

 

 

We finally made it to the Greg and had a chance to look around before Catherine's meeting. The space was impressive and it's humbling to be in a college that has survived and thrived after the suppression and reinstitution of the entire Jesuit order. You can't keep a good Ignatian down.

 

 

Baby and I waited outside during the meeting, doing our best to look like impoverished refugees to see if someone would cast a few coins our way. No luck. I think the nice stroller blew our cover. Gelato was forthcoming later, I had blood orange flavor with strawberry (blood oranges, as Esther told us, are basically the only oranges Italians know exist. Which is okay, because they are tasty.)

 

Then we all took a massive nap. Like, four hour nap. Jet lag is a beast. Concluding that, I strapped on my magic baby carrier and we proceeded to the Spanish Steps, of Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard Burton fame. We had the privilege of being 100% played by a flower salesman.

 

Sleazy Flower Dude: (To Catherine) Very pretty! Have a flower!

Us: (being so canny) No no! We don't need it.

SFD: Don't worry! It is free for you being so pretty.

Us: (being less canny) Well, uh, if it's free I guess it's okay.

SFD: Such pretty baby!

Us: Goodbye then!

SFD: Hey, what about my money??

Us: Uh.... here you go.

 

 

 

Classic. Lesson learned, I suppose, because we were able to successfully fend off the exact same tactic not an hour later from a totally separate SFD. In between massive statues of Poseidon and Athena, no less....

 

As you will see in the pictures, we stopped by the Pantheon again to swallow our tongues and bask in immensity. Also, where else could we drink such overpriced cappuccini? For what it's worth, now that we are actually in Rome and cannot escape, we decided it might be worthwhile to learn some Italian. So, we're giving it a shot on the Duolingo site (thanks Andersons!).

 

 

 

Finally, other favorite surprise moment of the day. Giant surprise monument to OT Marian typology (this goes out to all you Scott Hahn junkies out there... which is just a reminder of normal patristic, I guess). I kid you not. So epic. So awesome. Statues of Ezekiel, David, Isaiah, and Moses with corresponding citations. I prefer my exegetical choices immortalized in stone.

 

Isaiah 7:44 "Behold, the virgin shall conceive."

 

Ezekiel 44:2 "This gate shall remain shut."

 

 

Genesis 3:15 "I shall place enmity between you and the woman."

Psalm 45:5 "The Most High has sanctified his tabernacle."

 

 

Tomorrow we'll head back to the Piazza di Spagna and try to hit up the Keats-Shelley museum (right??). Probably.

 

All y'all in the States? Keep it real.