"Valleys and chasm, nearness and distance, mountains covered with woods, gorges where furious torrents flow, extinct volcanoes..."
Goethe
Goethe
 Verbum Domini is an interesting exhibition held in the Braccio di Carlo Magno in St Peter square; free admission. If you visit the Vatican museums and Saint Peter basilica you can pause form the noise and crowds by entering this inspiring exhibit that throw you into the origins of the Bible and into mystical atmosphere of antiquity and intensity.  Grilled fennel In my family we love to eat fresh fennel during our meals but we don’t like the outer leaves which are too hard for my children.
In Italian we say “non si butta niente” that means food shall not be wasted.  The entrance to Hell One of the most interesting paintings on display in the exhibit “Il Rinascimento a Roma nel segno di Michelangelo e Raffaello” ( held at palazzo Spada, Rome until 18 March 2012) was the copy of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment realized by Marcello Venusti in 1549.
 In Europe during the Renaissance period Italy was looked as a cultural reference and inspiration. Italians had transformed man's ideas on the universe and of the place they played in it: they started a revolution that will transform Europe in the following centuries.
Young men were sent to Italy to learn how to became perfect gentlemen and I like to quote how  Last week I meet a USA group of students for a visit of the excavations of Ancient Ostia.
We started with the necropolis along the Ostiense road, than we entered the Ancient gate to walk along Ostia’s Decumanus Maximus. The baths of Neptune, our first stop, had a great part of the floor mosaics covered with plastic (in winter time they’re preserved form the weather), nevertheless we all gathered in the open air gymnasium, and wandered about the sports Romans performed in the past.  One of the curiosity attracting coliseum’s visitors attention are the many holes that can be noticed everywhere within the structure.
These gave rise to same jokes, like the one of the enormous rats eager of marble, or to the wrong conviction coliseum was damaged during II World War bombings. Explanation has to be found in the dark ages following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476AD. |
