5-25-06

Designing a walking tour is harder than I thought. We met in Trastevere at about 11:00, I think, it has been a long time since this morning. We looked at the fountain, and heard about how it was designed by Carlo Fontana, though it was also designed by someone else later, which Mike explained probably meant that the second guy just finished it off. We looked at the stucco, and at the mural on the front of the church, and wondered whether there was some social significance in the fact that the only males portrayed are small figures groveling at the feet of Mary. Inside the church we looked at the ceilings and the first depiction of Mary at the throne of Heaven. Outside again we walked over to the Museo del Folklore, which is another site listed in our travel guide. I had read about it a few nights before we were asked to design the walking tour and told Mike that I thought it would be an interesting place to point out even if we would not have time to go inside. The museum contains artists rendering of Rome in the 18th and 19th centuries according to our guidebook, and 19th and 20th centuries according to another guide book I looked at. Although I wonder if I just misread the information and one said hundreds and the other said centuries. The museum also contains a reconstruction of Giuseppe Giaocchino Belli’s room and some of his manuscripts. This is interesting to me not because “he was a poet who wrote in the Roman dialect” as our guide book says, but because I walk through his square and fill my water bottle at the fountain in his statue every morning on my way to the Sede. It was actually quite interesting to see that there are things I walk by everyday that hold no significance to me, which are supposed to be important, or at least mentionable, sights according to our guidebook. After that we trekked up to the Gianicolo to look at some monuments from the unification of Italy in the 1840’s. I walked up and down that area several times yesterday just exploring and meandering about, trying to break down some of my mental walls around the city. The view of the city from that perch is nice, but I preferred looking over at a small villa in the middle of a lot of land on the opposite side of the Gianicolum. It was very peaceful and pleasant looking down there, and perched on top of the little wall I was able to see over the other walls that surrounded the villa itself. After the Gianicolum we went to St. Peters. I found that I really didn’t care so much for St. Peters. It was full of people, all snapping photographs and chatting with each other. Most of the churches I have been to, the tourists are respectful, they admire the works of art, shuffle about quietly, and then drop a few coins into some beggars cup as they leave. In St. Peters I saw people standing in front of icons and statues and having their photos snapped as though they were at Disney Land posing with Mickey Mouse. The most disturbing thing was seeing a man hope into a confessional so that his wife could snap a picture of him giving the thumbs up as he smiled for the camera. I looked around to see if I could see a confessional that said “Ingles” on it where Hilda might have made her confession, and then just left.