On Tuesdays, we have a day-long site visit for the Ancient City course (compared to only half-days on Mondays and Thursdays). We started at the Palatine, and since some friends and I wanted to explore the area a little, we left breakfast a few minutes early to be able to walk along the Tiber and Circus Maximus on our way to the meeting point. I couldn’t believe how empty the Palatine and Forum were when we got there, but as the morning progressed it quickly filled up with tourists. Our focus for the day was learning about the early, early days of Ancient Rome- the world that Aeneas stumbled upon and Romulus and Remus were born into.
The whole Forum used to be a horrible, smelly, malarial swamp until it was drained by the Tarquins (last three kings of Rome) in the 5th-6th century BC, so it was only used as a burial place before then. Several remains of Iron Age huts (including one that some scholars like to believe is the Hut of Romulus) have been found on the Palatine, but honestly they were pretty underwhelming. BUT! the view of the Forum did not disappoint, with the sun rising behind the Colosseum and lighting up the brick, marble, and rubble. One advantage of being in this city for a full semester is that we are going to visit the Forum five times throughout the course, allowing us to study its chronological development instead of just hitting the highlights and seeing a jumble of random buildings from across centuries. Can’t wait to return in a couple of weeks!
In the afternoon, the students were split up into smaller groups and tasked with the mission of physically locating two specific obelisks around Rome. It was sort of a fun scavenger hunt/race and we did sneak in a gelato stop (duh), but we still had to do some research and give a presentation on our sites as well so it still felt serious and academic. First we took the Metro from the Colosseum to the Spanish Steps and walked up to the Villa Borghese, where our first one was.
This obelisk was erected by Hadrian in memory of his 13-year-old loverboy who had died (Hadrian was 48 at the time so it’s definitely a little problematic!), but the surrounding gardens were lovely and shady, but I’ll admit I didn’t pay much attention to the famous sculptures scattered throughout them as soon as I saw this man blowing bubbles. I’m 7 years old.
Then, onwards to our main obelisk in the Piazza Navona! Although the obelisk itself is much older, the famous sculptor Bernini was later commissioned to add the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers) at its base. Although the Piazza is absolutely flooded with tourists and people aggressively trying to get us to buy selfie sticks, the fountain is still beautiful. Each side represents a river from one of the four continents that Europe knew about/had spread Christianity to at the time.
BEST PART is the armadillo on the American side. Well, it’s supposed to be an armadillo, but Bernini had never actually seen one so he relied on someone else’s description while carving and LOOK AT THIS THING::
It’s so hideous and I love it. Truly a masterpiece.
Our group was pretty tired at that point, so we walked to the bus stop (swung by the absolute cutest gelateria on the way) and came back to the Centro! It was a hot, hot, sweaty sweaty sweaty day, and my fitbit reported something like 18,700 steps at the end of it.
Still, such a beautiful, beautiful day in this city in which I feel a little more at home every day. And we’re only getting started!
Wright Now 