Rome II

May 13, 2015

The morning light comes pink through the window, reflecting off the wheats and melon-y oranges of the surrounding buildings. Was off early yesterday, making for the Keats house and the Spanish Steps. Of course I was early, so had cappuccino on the best-named street in Rome, Via Boccha di Leone Though the Steps were already thronged with tourists, I was first into the Keats house. I made my homage. No place is a good place to die, but I’ve though on both my visits that his apartment would have been a terrific place for healthy young men to live. Stopped, returning, at the Exhibition Center, where the kids were drawn away into rooms about math, and adults into paintings by David LaChapelle called Dopo di Diluvio, immense, kitschy, sexy depictions of a stylish world recovering after a flood. I’ve used the word “kitsch,” without being certain what I mean– maybe antique and extravagantly dramatic poses by figures too contemporary and real and recognizable. I suppose, though, that the same literalism was intended by the Baroque, which depicted contemporary fat ladies as Venus and Dido. I did like the work. I don’t know if I approve of it.

The Trevi was dry, the gods arising from metal scaffolds.

Later to Santa Maria Maggiore, whose Renaissance exterior hides the fact that it was a century old when Hagia Sophia was built.  It was Palestrina’s church, and one of the most impressive I’ve ever entered. It used to be called St Mary of the Snow, because there was a lovely sweet snowfall in Rome once, and some saint begged for a church to be built on the site of the snowfall to honor the Virgin Mary. At just that time she had been named Mother of God (as well as mother of the mortal Jesus) and so all things worked out well for her. Paid the extra 5 euro for a tour of the archaeological site under the church, where was discovered a huge villa from the first century BC, which went through 400 years of life and growth before the church was built on top of it. Old frescoes, floor mosaics, taberna graffitti. The guide asked me how old I was, and I said “twenty five.” She said, “Each leg, maybe.”  I thought I was going to get a discount, but I didn’t. Soldiers were stationed outside the basilica, to guard against a threat by Isis. They were so good looking I thought they might simply have been another attraction.

Will set me straight about the street vendors, how they are desperate rather than merely irritating, having been deceived into coming here and then abandoned, so when one stopped as I was eating supper, I bought a carved giraffe and a carved turtle. Will is running and trying to finance an operation to keep the African emigres alive after their rescue in the sea. The woman who sat beside me at supper at Flann O’Brien’s bought a measure of pretty cloth and made it into a wrap because she was cold. She is a Chinese-American (Asian American of some kind) named Victoria, who has two daughters and a son and once lived in Paris in considerable splendor, the wife of a diplomat, I assume. Now she lives in DC. In the course of the conversation she invited me to go with her to a concert in this very church, and I did. The interior of the sanctuary is very Burne-Jones, and quite lovely, though the acoustics are unexpectedly dry. One step back in the extravagance would have made the interior beautiful. The concert was–though it was not called this–greatest opera hits for tourists. All the faves, well done, except the soprano did not quite take her bite out of “Der Holle Rache.” Victoria waved me away when I offered to walk her to her hotel. I was rather glad that she didn’t perceive that she was in no danger from me. So, two nights in Rome and already I have had a date.

Construction all around, preventing sleeping late.