Jumbled notes from a jumbled city: I have missed writing for a few days. Consequently, my thoughts and memories are as tangled as the Rome I have explored. Here is my attempt at reconstruction.
Sunday, 28 June: Today I breakfasted earlier than usual to make confession and attend Mass at St. Peter’s. At 8:30 the street along the Tiber was nearly empty of people for a change, and I thought perhaps I had beaten the lines until I arrived in the Square. The thirty- minute wait in that line found me standing behind an American woman, her husband, and her daughter. The woman was very nervous about time, speaking rapidly and incessantly. They were here for only a few days, I assume, because she said several times that her guidebook indicated they could do the Square in nineteen minutes and the interior of the basilica in 48 minutes.
Once past security and inside the basilica, I didn’t pause to look at the artwork, the statuary, or even the ceiling. I knew the location of the confessionals and hurried to join what would surely be a long line of penitents. After my previous visit, I knew that it was necessary to ask the guard permission to enter that area. When I requested confession, he nodded and waved me past the red cord barricade.
Scattered about in this part of the basilica were at least eight massive wooden confessionals. Above the door of each confessional was a sign indicating the languages spoken by the priest inside his confessional box and a light, which, if green, indicated the priest was available. Of these eight boxes, only four were in use, and of these four, only one other penitent was making confession. No one else was there, no lines of bedraggled sinners, no elbow-bumping visitors as on the other side of the barricade.
So I knelt on the gracefully built kneeler beside the confessional, made a little noise, and the priest slid open the grill. Bluntly, I divulged my sins. The priest, an older man, paused for a long time (surely I wasn’t that awful), then asked some questions, gave me some gentle advice, and bade me make a traditional penance.
The Mass was offered in Latin (Novus Ordo). It was good to go to Mass, especially preceded by confession, but the attire of most of the people was appalling. At many of the churches I have entered here, signs at the entryway warn against shorts, sleeveless blouses, and immodest dress in general, but it seems no one enforces these guidelines. I assume the churches finally gave up, overwhelmed by the hordes of tourists.
Then into St. Peter’s Square, where fifteen minutes late Pope Francis gave his Sunday address from a window above the square. He spoke for perhaps ten minutes in Italian, recognized certain groups who cheered him, prayed the Angelus, and disappeared. He has a slow, easy ways of speaking, but from my vantage point all I could see was one of his hands.
Other impressions: In the line outside St. Peter’s, a young man who was with his parents—they appeared Eastern European—was wearing a t-shirt that read “Fuck Yea!” He was going into church wearing that shirt. Not much else to say about it except for the first time in five years I felt like decking somebody.
Rome is hot and a little dirty, some trash on the streets, food served outdoors everywhere, open markets, yet in the eight days since my arrival here I have not seen a single fly. In fact, I have not seen a single insect of any kind except for some gnats who dance about one of the plants on my terrace in the evenings and a few tiny ants scuttling about the terrace floor.
At nearly all of the main tourist attractions, you will find men gaudily dressed as Roman soldiers, having their pictures taken for a fee with tourists. My favorite of these photo-ready masquerades was the soldier who removed his helmet and lit a cigarette.
The white clouds drifting by in the sky above the city remind me exactly of the clouds painted during the Renaissance.
My neighborhood is alive by 4:30 in the morning with birds. The noisiest are the gulls. One of the gulls cries “Hey! Hey! Hey!” over and over again, sounding exactly like a human being, more specifically an Italian.
There are beggars everywhere I go. One man who begs near the Vatican has four large bumps on his head—two of them are well over an inch tall—and I keep wondering if they are real. Some female beggars wearing long dresses lay prone on the pavement with their faces buried in their forearms and their hands extended toward a plastic cup. One woman whom I passed had a single coin in her cup. At first I felt sorrow for their plight, but then happened to see one readying herself for the day. She was well under twenty-five, was healthy, and gave me a smile as I passed.
Monday, June 29: Today is the Feast Day of Saints Peter and Paul, and is a major Roman holiday. I debate briefly returning to Saint Peter’s, but instead hoof it to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore.
Here I strike gold, meaning this basilica is now my favorite church in Rome. It is the resting place of Bernini. It’s the home of the Bernini staircase, which is a fabulous piece of architecture descending into a tiny chapel below the altar. The frescos are beautiful. The confessionals sport priests who actually sit with the doors to the confessional open and look at you as you pass by. People use these confessionals, as opposed to the ones at St. Peters. The bathrooms down the stairs outside the gift shop were the cleanest I’ve seen in Rome, besides the one at my hotel. There were four guards in military dress in the courtyard, three of them packing sidearms and the fourth a submachine gun. (I always like the idea of the good guys having some firepower). The staff was friendly.
And then at 10 a.m. the bells began clanging as if the Hunchback of Notre Dame was tugging the ropes while hopped up on drugs. A beautiful Feast Day Mass began, and I stayed. The celebrant spoke in Italian, but the Mass is the Mass, and I could follow along. And some of the prayers, including the “Our Father,” were in Latin. The choir brought down the angels from heaven to listen.
Tuesday, June 30: What I love most about this city are my happy accidents. Every day I set out to a certain destination and on the way rub elbows with more unexpected pleasures than I can count. For example, this morning I took some postcards to mail from the Vatican. (The cards are not expensive, but the postage was more than $2 a card). So I mail the cards and then decide to walk down the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II to investigate the Pantheon more thoroughly and see two churches there. I rise to leave when suddenly I see a sign reading “Ingresso Gratuito” announcing some sort of art exhibit. Though I know little Italian, I know the sign means free entrance, and I could use some air conditioning. So I enter the exhibit and am simply blown away. Nearly no one is there and the rooms are cool (in this heat, pedestrians perspire even when walking slowly), but best of all there is this tremendous display of various reliquaries, processional crosses, and other precious items associated with worship. It is a stunning exhibit, with the objects, made by goldsmiths and other craftsman, dating from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In spite of the thousands of visitors outside—the line to enter St. Peter’s has to be almost half a mile long— only four or five people share the exhibit with me. The display is stunning, stunning, stunning. Many of the reliquaries still contain the relics of saints—arms, bones, etc. Relics of St. Blaise particularly inspired me and I said a prayer there for my son Jake and his wife Laura. It’s also the last day of the display, so once again my bumbling ways hit pay dirt.
This happens to me every day.
So I pop back out into the sun and cross the Tiber and start toward the Pantheon. I’m walking along when suddenly a church draws my attention. This is the Santa Maria in Vallicella, also called the Nuovo Chiesa, or New Church, though it was built four hundred years ago. It was the home church of St. Philip Neri, and as I entered a woman with a beautiful accent asked if I would like a headset for a tour free of charge, adding that donations are encouraged. I took the tour and loved every minute of it. The audio guide explained a little about Philip Neri’s life, his love and care for the poor, his founding of the oratorio. The guide also explained different parts of the church, including three paintings by Reubens and the beautiful chapel in which you can see the glass casket of the saint.
Then more bumbling. I stop in the Piazza Argentina—I can’t even remember at the point where I was heading—to view some Roman ruins and found that here was the place where Caesar was assassinated. The spot where he died is today marked by a pine tree growing out of the ruins.
And yes, today the sidewalks melted. Many of the streets I walk are cobbled, and many of the sidewalks are made of concrete or similar materials, but the asphalt patches literally melt. You’ll be walking along and suddenly you notice your feet sticking a little to the sidewalk, and the next thing you know you’re leaving your footprints, at least temporarily, on Rome.
Soon some general thoughts about Rome next time.
Bumbling on….
Once past security and inside the basilica, I didn’t pause to look at the artwork, the statuary, or even the ceiling. I knew the location of the confessionals and hurried to join what would surely be a long line of penitents. After my previous visit, I knew that it was necessary to ask the guard permission to enter that area. When I requested confession, he nodded and waved me past the red cord barricade.
Scattered about in this part of the basilica were at least eight massive wooden confessionals. Above the door of each confessional was a sign indicating the languages spoken by the priest inside his confessional box and a light, which, if green, indicated the priest was available. Of these eight boxes, only four were in use, and of these four, only one other penitent was making confession. No one else was there, no lines of bedraggled sinners, no elbow-bumping visitors as on the other side of the barricade.
So I knelt on the gracefully built kneeler beside the confessional, made a little noise, and the priest slid open the grill. Bluntly, I divulged my sins. The priest, an older man, paused for a long time (surely I wasn’t that awful), then asked some questions, gave me some gentle advice, and bade me make a traditional penance.
The Mass was offered in Latin (Novus Ordo). It was good to go to Mass, especially preceded by confession, but the attire of most of the people was appalling. At many of the churches I have entered here, signs at the entryway warn against shorts, sleeveless blouses, and immodest dress in general, but it seems no one enforces these guidelines. I assume the churches finally gave up, overwhelmed by the hordes of tourists.
Then into St. Peter’s Square, where fifteen minutes late Pope Francis gave his Sunday address from a window above the square. He spoke for perhaps ten minutes in Italian, recognized certain groups who cheered him, prayed the Angelus, and disappeared. He has a slow, easy ways of speaking, but from my vantage point all I could see was one of his hands.
Other impressions: In the line outside St. Peter’s, a young man who was with his parents—they appeared Eastern European—was wearing a t-shirt that read “Fuck Yea!” He was going into church wearing that shirt. Not much else to say about it except for the first time in five years I felt like decking somebody.
Rome is hot and a little dirty, some trash on the streets, food served outdoors everywhere, open markets, yet in the eight days since my arrival here I have not seen a single fly. In fact, I have not seen a single insect of any kind except for some gnats who dance about one of the plants on my terrace in the evenings and a few tiny ants scuttling about the terrace floor.
At nearly all of the main tourist attractions, you will find men gaudily dressed as Roman soldiers, having their pictures taken for a fee with tourists. My favorite of these photo-ready masquerades was the soldier who removed his helmet and lit a cigarette.
The white clouds drifting by in the sky above the city remind me exactly of the clouds painted during the Renaissance.
My neighborhood is alive by 4:30 in the morning with birds. The noisiest are the gulls. One of the gulls cries “Hey! Hey! Hey!” over and over again, sounding exactly like a human being, more specifically an Italian.
There are beggars everywhere I go. One man who begs near the Vatican has four large bumps on his head—two of them are well over an inch tall—and I keep wondering if they are real. Some female beggars wearing long dresses lay prone on the pavement with their faces buried in their forearms and their hands extended toward a plastic cup. One woman whom I passed had a single coin in her cup. At first I felt sorrow for their plight, but then happened to see one readying herself for the day. She was well under twenty-five, was healthy, and gave me a smile as I passed.
Monday, June 29: Today is the Feast Day of Saints Peter and Paul, and is a major Roman holiday. I debate briefly returning to Saint Peter’s, but instead hoof it to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore.
Here I strike gold, meaning this basilica is now my favorite church in Rome. It is the resting place of Bernini. It’s the home of the Bernini staircase, which is a fabulous piece of architecture descending into a tiny chapel below the altar. The frescos are beautiful. The confessionals sport priests who actually sit with the doors to the confessional open and look at you as you pass by. People use these confessionals, as opposed to the ones at St. Peters. The bathrooms down the stairs outside the gift shop were the cleanest I’ve seen in Rome, besides the one at my hotel. There were four guards in military dress in the courtyard, three of them packing sidearms and the fourth a submachine gun. (I always like the idea of the good guys having some firepower). The staff was friendly.
And then at 10 a.m. the bells began clanging as if the Hunchback of Notre Dame was tugging the ropes while hopped up on drugs. A beautiful Feast Day Mass began, and I stayed. The celebrant spoke in Italian, but the Mass is the Mass, and I could follow along. And some of the prayers, including the “Our Father,” were in Latin. The choir brought down the angels from heaven to listen.
Tuesday, June 30: What I love most about this city are my happy accidents. Every day I set out to a certain destination and on the way rub elbows with more unexpected pleasures than I can count. For example, this morning I took some postcards to mail from the Vatican. (The cards are not expensive, but the postage was more than $2 a card). So I mail the cards and then decide to walk down the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II to investigate the Pantheon more thoroughly and see two churches there. I rise to leave when suddenly I see a sign reading “Ingresso Gratuito” announcing some sort of art exhibit. Though I know little Italian, I know the sign means free entrance, and I could use some air conditioning. So I enter the exhibit and am simply blown away. Nearly no one is there and the rooms are cool (in this heat, pedestrians perspire even when walking slowly), but best of all there is this tremendous display of various reliquaries, processional crosses, and other precious items associated with worship. It is a stunning exhibit, with the objects, made by goldsmiths and other craftsman, dating from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In spite of the thousands of visitors outside—the line to enter St. Peter’s has to be almost half a mile long— only four or five people share the exhibit with me. The display is stunning, stunning, stunning. Many of the reliquaries still contain the relics of saints—arms, bones, etc. Relics of St. Blaise particularly inspired me and I said a prayer there for my son Jake and his wife Laura. It’s also the last day of the display, so once again my bumbling ways hit pay dirt.
This happens to me every day.
So I pop back out into the sun and cross the Tiber and start toward the Pantheon. I’m walking along when suddenly a church draws my attention. This is the Santa Maria in Vallicella, also called the Nuovo Chiesa, or New Church, though it was built four hundred years ago. It was the home church of St. Philip Neri, and as I entered a woman with a beautiful accent asked if I would like a headset for a tour free of charge, adding that donations are encouraged. I took the tour and loved every minute of it. The audio guide explained a little about Philip Neri’s life, his love and care for the poor, his founding of the oratorio. The guide also explained different parts of the church, including three paintings by Reubens and the beautiful chapel in which you can see the glass casket of the saint.
Then more bumbling. I stop in the Piazza Argentina—I can’t even remember at the point where I was heading—to view some Roman ruins and found that here was the place where Caesar was assassinated. The spot where he died is today marked by a pine tree growing out of the ruins.
And yes, today the sidewalks melted. Many of the streets I walk are cobbled, and many of the sidewalks are made of concrete or similar materials, but the asphalt patches literally melt. You’ll be walking along and suddenly you notice your feet sticking a little to the sidewalk, and the next thing you know you’re leaving your footprints, at least temporarily, on Rome.
Soon some general thoughts about Rome next time.
Bumbling on….
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