Ten years ago in Rome

Tags

Capena, Dr Massimo Buzzanca, Italy, Rome, Wire hair

Today on FB I had a reminder of 10 yrs ago, showing a photo of two little puppies about 6 weeks old.

The 26 April 2009 we drove to Capena which is 30 minutes North of Rome. It is pretty straight forward taking Via Nomentana going North from our house on Via Dei Villini and then joining the SS-4 which is the ancient Via Salaria (Salt Road) on the way we will past some interesting site like the old Rome Airport of the 1920’s Roma-Urbe and then joining the old Via Tiberina at Prima Porta and going North still until the round about second exit and Capena is just further down the road. At this point we are in the countryside and it is green and dotted with nice houses.  Our destination was the farm of Dr Massimo Buzzanca and his wife Tiziana.

Via Tiberina is a very ancient Roman road from 396 BC and don’t be surprise to see around Settebagni and Capena a lot of prostitutes all decked out sitting on a sofa by the side of the road. We would learn later that a lot of those prostitutes were in fact nuns trying to make ends meet. Many came to Italy from far away impoverished countries and the Cardinal who runs the convents for his National congregations often don’t have the money to supplement all the needs of their priests and nuns, so they get a night job. Pretty amazing because the Vatican does not help them financially. Prostitution is illegal in cities but not on the highway between towns. But I digress…

We had met them some months prior when Nicky and Nora were just a few days old. In Italy when you buy a pet they are microchipped by Law at the point of purchase and this being Italy, the government department responsible for the registration of all animals has forms to fill out and a few months down the road, you will have to go collect the formal registration etc. You cannot name your pet whatever name you choose this is Italy and Style comes into play, by Law letters are assigned to a group of days in the year and so in our case that day the letters were F and E. So Nicky was christened Fantastico Nicky and Nora, Eleonora di Capena.

Nicky and Nora are very different in character, Nicky is a week younger than Nora and he is a show dog by pedigree and family lineage. Nora is a tracking and hunting dog on her family lineage. Meaning that Nora has always been our guard dog and early warning system whereas Nicky is a beach boy loving the sunshine and going through life as if he is on a walkway with lots of paparazzi.

On the drive back, Will sat on the back seat with Nora and Nicky. Nora was nervous about leaving the farm and her relatives whereas Nicky whined non-stop in his little whiny puppy voice. We discovered quickly that we could not take them together to the Vet clinic. We could walk them together in Rome but once in Canada that became impossible.

Imagine 10 years already, how time flies.

This photo was taken in our den at home on Via dei Villini. Nicky is on the left. They do not have their signature collars yet sent to us as a gift by our friend Cecilia H.

 

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Rome

Tags

Birthday, Eternal city, Italy, Romulus

The 21 April is the Birthday of Rome, Maggior di Roma is an expression in Italian meaning Rome is greatest. Rome celebrates its 2,772nd birthday on 21 April which this year coincides with Easter Sunday festivities. Known as Natale di Roma, the annual birthday celebration is based on the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus in 753 BC.

Rome is known as the Eternal City even among the ancient Romans themselves. It was so called because the Romans thought that no matter what happened to the world, no matter how many other empires might rise and fall, Rome would go on forever. Romans still think this way today. Tu non vedrai nessuna cosa al mondo maggior di Roma. 

Puccini composed this Hymn to Rome in 1919 to celebrate the victories of Italy in the First World War and its liberation from Austrian dominance. It became in a way its Birthday song. Puccini got his inspiration from an ancient poem, “Carmen Saeculare” (literally, “Secular Hymn”, usually translated as “Song of the Ages”), is a hymn or ode by the Roman lyric poet Horace, commissioned by Emperor Augustus in 17 BC. It is collection of mythological and religious verses encouraging the restoration of the tradition and the glorification of the gods, particularly Apollo, Diana, Jupiter and Venus.

Carnevale Season

Tags

Carnevale, Friends, Italy, mask ball, party

This is the Season for the Feste Romane, think of the music of Ottorino Respighi and also elsewhere in cities like Venezia. It is also the time of parties given by the aristocracy. I am happy to think that once in the not so distant past we went to such parties in Rome. What elegant parties they were. Here are some photos of our friends at the home of Prince Jonathan Doria-Pamphilj in his palace in the centre of Rome near Piazza Venezia last week. I remember when we first visited this palace and wonder how can anyone today live in such a grand place, it is beyond real. But family tradition and owning such a place for several centuries brings not only attachment but also a sense that you owe it to your ancestors to continue. Other princely families in Rome like the Colonna, the Palavincini, BonCompagni-Ludovisi or Torlonia, the  also have spectacular palaces but they are not open to visitors, you only enter as a guest invited as a friend.

Side view of the palace Doria-Pamphilj on Via del Corso (Via Flaminia in antiquity)

The interior courtyard of the palace.

It was a mask ball, here friends in the Mirror Gallery. (name withheld)

The Prince has through his family history a very large art collection of antiquities,  Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces. Our dear friends C.E. and her husband P.C.

Palazzo Doria Pamphilj—the colossal, 1,000-room family seat, which dates from 1505 and is among the most treasure-filled palaces in Europe. Said to be nearly two-thirds the size of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj may well be the largest private residence in Italy. It houses one of the nation’s most important private art collections, with 650 works, including masterpieces by Raphael, Caravaggio, Titian, and Velázquez. The Doria Pamphilj clan—whose family tree includes the renowned Genoese admiral Andrea Doria and Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, who reigned as Pope Innocent X from 1644 to 1655—is one of just a handful of Rome’s ancient princely families who have survived with their palazzi, fortunes, and staggering art collections intact.

Prince Jonathan Doria-Pamphilj and his husband Elson Braga with their children Emily and Filippo Andrea VII.

Santuari Murali

Tags

beliefs, Catholic, Italy, madonna, religion, sanctuary, superstitions

Madonella or Santuari Muralli are found almost everywhere in Italy, attached to buildings and on street corners. Most are centuries old, maintained by the people of the neighbourhood or of a parish church. Many created by great artists as a commission by a religious congregation.

People pass by them, some will stop to say a short prayer, others just nod to them as if a neighbour. On some streets people leave plants or flowers, votive candles.

There is an unwritten rule and everyone knows that the flowers and votive candles are never to be disturbed. This is a sacred place even if just on a busy street. It is as if there is an invisible precinct. The idea of these Madonella (little Madonnas) or Wall Shrine is as old as Rome, in antiquity on street corners you would have the local divinity protecting the neighbourhood usually near the local tavern which served also as a Club for the area, serving food and drink. The divinities were there to protect and they were different in each neighbourhood, they also had a local story attached to them and were said to perform miracles against an attack by unfriendly foreigners. Rome is a superstitious place and Romans have always been known to be a superstitious people.

With the gradual transformation of the City in the fourth century A.D. with the imposition by Emperor Constantine of the Christian religion, slowly these old pagan shrines are changed to Christian ones. The most popular new figure is the Virgin Mary, often associated with Venus or Aphrodite. Since Venus usually appears with a cupid, the Virgin Mary appears with a new born baby Jesus, voilà transformation and a gullible public is none the wiser.

When we lived on Via Asmara there was such a Madonella, at the bottom of the street was a big high school and many students walked back and forth passing in front of it. There was always flowers and many votive candles and I remember thinking that the kids might be tempted to steal or break what was left in a moment of piety. No never they simply walked pass it without ever touching anything. They obviously knew better than to desecrate such a site.

A lovely tradition to see such sanctuaries attached to the walls of apartment buildings or commercial ones. Just a tradition, it what was once a very Catholic country, like all places Italy has changed a lot but this millennia old tradition persists.

 

 

Memoria

Tags

2 june, Italy, Rome

On June 2, 1946 Italy became a Republic after a referendum to abolish the Monarchy, King Umberto II of the House of Savoy left for exile in Switzerland where he died in 1983. So today is la Festa della Repubblica Italiana.  An event we witnessed while living in Rome. Highly ceremonial and done well with a great military parade on Via del Foro Romano. The Italians love uniforms and parades and we discovered that the Italian Navy has a cavalry regiment probably the only one in the world. This video is about the ceremony at the Altar to the Nation on Piazza Venezia, the centre of Rome and before the military parade which takes place moments later behind this giant white marble monument amongst the ruins of the Roman Empire. The Ceremony is presided by the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella accompanied by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.

Looking at my readers

Tags

2017, 2018, Australia, blog, Canada., followers, France, Germany, Holy See, Italy, life, mexico, Netherlands, PEI, readers, Spain, Turkey, UK, USA, Vatican

I am looking at the stats for my blog and who is coming to read and maybe comment on my blog. Interesting stats, about 18,000 readers a year from around the planet, in some cases I wonder how they got attracted to my blog and why they would come back and comment or read again and again. I also noticed that those countries who do not appear at all on my list of readers are countries where either they have highly controlled internet (police state) like Belarus, Iran or are countries where the internet does not exist because of poor infrastructure and lack of reliable electric supply, like the Congo or Afghanistan. What intrigues me is readers from the Holy See (Vatican) which has a population of 921 people and is the smallest European Country totally surrounded by the City of Rome, must be some Cardinal no doubt. Then there readers from tiny places in the world like the Seychelles Islands, a group of 115 islands forming one republic in the North West corner of the Indian Ocean.

The largest group of readers are from the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Spain, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Germany, France, India, Turkey, Brazil. I also have 225 followers of my blog.

I always find it interesting to see how many diverse followers I have to my blog. People like to read what goes on elsewhere in the world and try to imagine maybe how life is in parts of the world they have not visited.  I am happy for their readership and who knows maybe they will want to visit or read more about Canada’s smallest Province Prince Edward Island and its small population of 150,000 persons.

For the readers, you all know that I write mostly about my home and life in general, maybe some observation about something that strikes me as odd or of our time.

Now to the last few days of 2017 and onwards then to 2018 with all of its many surprises.

 

ROMA

Tags

Italy, life, memory, Rome

To think I lived in that fantastic city once not so long ago. Today September 2, the weather is sunny and 26C. Though this Summer has been far too dry and created a water emergency in the City. The images I recognize as the old places where I lived, funny to see those images as a resident of the City instead of a visitor, there is so much more to remember. Many of the shots at the beginning are of early morning at sunrise when there is no traffic and no one about.

 

2 June

Tags

Canada., Elizabeth II, Italy, June, Louis XIV, Republic, Rome

Today is June 2, in Italy it is the Anniversary of the Italian Republic 2 June 1946 when by referendum the monarchy was replaced by a Republican system. Festa della Repubblica Italiana.

The giant pine cone from the Villa of Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli, seen here in the courtyard of the Vatican Museum.

Our old neighbourhood in Rome with its beautiful gardens

June 2, 1953 is also the day Elizabeth II became Queen. She is now the longest serving monarch in British History, longer than Victoria. Elizabeth II celebrates in 2017 her Sapphire Jubilee. In Canada the only other monarch to have reigned longer is King Louis XIV a total of 72 years.

Photo of H.M. Queen Elizabeth II taken on her Coronation day 2 June 1953.

Architecture

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Basilica, Cornelia, Italy, Rome, St-Peter, Vatican

There is a lot of beautiful architecture in this world, old and modern and then you get the crap that developers impose to make a fast buck by proposing buildings designed by a computer program. Here is one example of decorative architecture which followed a plan, an idea and involved the beauty of art in the Baroque Era.

View of the bronze baldacchino of the Papal Altar in St-Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. The bronze came from the coffered ceiling of the pantheon. Designed and built by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) who was chief architect and decorator of the Basilica with his arch competitor Francesco Boromini.

Truly an impressive monument amongst many in St-Peter. The Basilica is probably the least used church in all of Christendom, used only for Papal Masses and State occasions at the Holy See. On most days it is seen by thousands of tourists and does have the feel of a museum.

The bronze and gilded baldachin was the first of Bernini’s works to combine sculpture and architecture and represents an important development in Baroque church interior design and furnishing. The canopy rests upon four helical columns each of which stands on a high marble plinth. The columns support a cornice which curves inwards in the middle of each side. Above this, four twice life size angels stand at the corners behind whom four large volutes rise up to a second smaller cornice which in turn supports the gilded cross on a sphere, a symbol of the world redeemed by Christianity.

The four columns are 20 metres or 66 feet high. From the cornice hangs a bronze semblance of the scalloped and tasselled border that typically trimmed the papal baldacchino. The structure is decorated with detailed motifs including heraldic emblems of the Barberini family (Pope Urban VIII was born Maffeo Barberini) such as bees and laurel leaves.

There are many things to see inside St-Peter’s Basilica but this one element is well worth looking at in detail. The other part of the Basilica is the ruins of the original St-Peter’s from the fourth century immediately beneath the Papal Altar and the Via Cornelia Roman cemetery which dates backs to Republican times. Entrance to that site is by reservation only on specific days. A fascinating place and the highlight of any visit to Rome.

Hodge podge

Tags

Amsterdam, Delphi, gardens, Giusti, Greece, Italy, Kouroi, Rijks Museum

As I count down for my birthday on Friday, I am looking at old photos of myself and places visited or lived in.

1959 in the family living room when Television sets were actual furniture broadcasting only 4 channels.

The twins of Argos, Kleobis and Biton in the Museum of Delphi in Greece, sculpted by Polymedes c. 500 B.C.  They are twice a human size, presented here as divinities. 

The Sacred enclosure of Delphi where are the major temples are located. It sits above the gulf of Corinth. A spectacular site, quite deserted when we visited in late November of 2008

Here I am enjoying a Greek beer in Delphi just minutes away from the village of Arachova  where we were staying. We were celebrating our Anniversary and friends suggested we visit the area.

A view of part of the Gardens of the Villa Borghese in Rome in Spring 2009, always a pleasure to walk in at any time of the year.

From the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam a beautiful nature morte painting, Flemish school. What I find truly fascinating is how the painter was able to reproduce all the elements, the citrus, the chinese bowl, the silver pitcher and gold goblet and intricate details. We visited in 2008.

Café Metropol, Athens, in front of the Cathedral of Athens, a great place for a coffee and a light meal.

In Rome with my new Borsalino which I purchased in Milan. I found out on a trip to Sicily that this is the type of hat the Capo of a Mafia clan would wear. This explains the puzzled looks I got in Agrigento from local men.

The Giusti Palace and Garden (Italian: Palazzo e giardino Giusti) are located in the east of Verona, Italy, a short distance from Piazza Isolo and near the city centre. The palace was built in the sixteenth century. The garden were planted in 1580 and are considered one of the finest examples of an Italian garden in Europe, a splendid park of terraces climbing upon the hill.