Just down the street from the Villa Giulia, our next goal is the Galleria Nazionale D'Arte Moderna which, like most other museums in Rome, is undergoing what seems to be a decades-long restoration and reassemblage, some of which may possibly be complete by the time you read this.
There are already quite a few worthwhile reasons to visit the Gallery in its current state. Works by Mondrian, Duchamp and Morandi are sprinkled about, as are multimedia works and the occasional hidden-away Van Gogh, Degas and Cezanne, which you may accidentally find while thinking you are going into a room that is supposed to be closed or could in fact be storage space.
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Outside the Galleria is the Villa Borghese, a large urban park with a countryside feel to it. Because you've all been so patient and kind with all this walking about, here's your reward: A picture of someone bathing in a fountain in the Villa Borghese. Truthfully, I felt like doing it myself.
Then it was on once again to Piazza del Popolo and the church of Santa Maria del Popolo which holds, among other brilliances, two important works by Caravaggio: The Crucifixion of St. Peter and The Conversion of St. Paul. The latter, with its typical (for Caravaggio) dramatic use of foreshortening, darkness, and emotional expression, shows why Caravaggio could be considered in such high regard despite his chaotic and scandalous personal life.
So you all remember that as soon as I landed in Rome I lost my airplane ticket back home, right? I figured, what with all this walking around, it'd be no problem to keep walking and head over to the US Airways office in town to pick up a replacement ticket.
| You all see what's coming next, right? Right! A visit to an Italian police station! |
It wasn't as bad as all that, unless you count the police captain or whatever he was who chain-smoked right next to the sign which clearly said (in Italian) "NO SMOKING." Even I was able to read this basic admonition by this time. I held my breath and dutifully filled out names, addresses, phone numbers, who, what, when, where, why, how, and got as a souvenir an official-looking police report which I could hand over to the airline as proof that I Love Bureaucracy. Too bad by this time it was too late in the day to head back to the airline office. Time for the Seniors to gather for a critique of works!
Before heading to our first crit of the quarter, a few of us gathered together in the Campo de' Fiori to embolden ourselves for what lay ahead. We went to a bar in the Campo and ordered what is known by the locals as "Caffe Corretto": Corrected (i.e. spiked) Coffee. You can have your coffee "corrected" with any number of liquids, the local favorite being grappa, a brandy which will "correct" you straight up in your seat if you know what I mean.
Having been corrected and I mean good by our coffee, we now felt ready to sit around explaining ourselves and why, amongst all the endless jaunts about town, we hadn't gotten anything done yet.