Thursday 10 April: mostly baroque, with clams

Laundry will have to wait; the weather is too good. Pics from today at http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielcmack/sets/72157604476661799/. Wrote a bit in the morning, then walked over my bridge, the Ponte Sisto. It was built in the 15^th century, the first one since the ancient Romans, and today it is still a foot bridge. The same bunch of beggars dressed like extremely dirty bikers are always sitting on it with a pack of very friendly dogs. I fed the dogs pizza the other day. The locals tell me not to give anything to the beggars, hoping that they will eventually move to the Vatican. “Besides,” the baker across the street told me, “we have socialized medicine and housing. What else do they need?” I did see an American give one of them a one-euro note, which he added to an enormous roll in his pocket, so he’s apparently not hurting too much.

Campo de’ Fiori: Field of Flowers. Some say it was a flowering meadow, others that it’s been a flower market for centuries. Another story says the name comes from Flora, a mistress of Pompey the Great, who had a house here. Pompey, by the way, was Julius Caesar’s friend and colleague, then rival, then enemy, and was assassinated in Egypt, where he fled to escape Caesar. He was also Caesar’s son-in-law, even though he was older, because he married Caesar’s only child Julia. She died in childbirth, as did the baby, which is why Caesar had to adopt as his heir his great nephew Octavian, who became Augustus, the first emperor. Is this too much of a historical diversion? Maybe I need footnotes. Anyway, Campo de’ Fiori has a great daily market of produce and flowers. Great places to eat here, too. There’s a statue of Giordano Bruno, a philosopher who combined neoplatonism, Catholic mysticism, the Jewish Qabala (like Madonna), and occult theory to create a sort of late Renaissance “new age” system. He was burnt at the stake here in 1600, the last person ever executed by the Inquisition in Rome.

Visited the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, a nice work of the early Baroque by Maderno. The dome is the second highest in Rome after St. Peter’s. Under the dome inside is a mirrored table so you can see the frescos on the inside of the dome. There is also a great pipe organ of the 17^th century over the entrance. I then hopped on a bus, which was so crowded that nobody could get out at the next stop because everyone was shoving so much. It so irritate the driver that he pulled away and drove six blocks and wouldn’t let anyone out. As soon as we came to a stop I pried a door open and leapt out. I walked over to the Trevi Fountain. One of the newest monuments of Rome (it’s mid-18^th century), the Trevi represents everything I love about Rome. I like Paris a lot, but there, the Trevi would be at the end of a beautiful, manicured square and would be just another nice piece of architecture. Not in Rome! To see the Trevi, you would think that piazza is Italian for “parking lot.” The fountain takes up literally three quarters of the square, and the rest is jam-packed with tourists. This does not, of course, prevent cars, trucks, and the ever-present Vespas from barreling through the crowd (more on Roman traffic another time). In Paris, every couple of centuries, someone comes along and cleans everything up: François I in the Renaissance, Louis XIV in the 17^th century, Napoleon in the early 19^th, and then de Gaulle. They keep a few things from the past in place, send some to museums, then clean up and build largely straight wide roads and broad plazas. Not here. In Rome, you build on, under, inside, above, and around whatever is already there, and often incorporate it into what you are building (except for Mussolini, who did a fair amount of bulldozing). Then you introduce traffic. It’s an absolute circus, but I love it.

I walked up to Piazza Barberini to see the Bernini fountains there. I love Bernini, and the Barberini were among his best patrons. They were a princely Roman family who contributed several popes to the Church. Their coat of arms features three honey bees, which is why so much Roman Baroque art has bees all over it (look at the baldacchino, or canopy, over the high altar at St. Peter’s. It’s also by Bernini, and bees crawl all over it). In the middle of the piazza is the Tritone Fountain. A triton is half man and half fish, what I call a “mer-dude” (as opposed to “mermaid”). The other fountain is a little one on the side, called the Fontana delle Api, or Fountain of the Bees. It has three wonderfully creepy Barberini bees on it. There’s always someone sitting on it, and everyone drinks from it. Since this is a commercial district, you see men in Armani and women in Prada stoop down and take a sip from the spouts. I filled my water bottle and stopped to eat: spaghetti con vongole. Vongole are the sweet little baby clams from the Tyrrhenian Sea, the part of the Mediterranean between western Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily.

Metro to Piazza de Spagna and the Spanish Steps. Why are they the Spanish Steps, if they’re in Italy? The Spanish embassy to the pope used to be here. They are now filled with azaleas and other plants just starting to flower. I’ll have to come back in a couple of weeks when they’re in full bloom. At the foot of the steps is another Bernini fountain, la Baraccia, the old leaky boat. I really like this fountain. The water pressure here was too low for spectacular cascades of water, so Bernini took advantage of the situation and made a beat-up old rowboat full of leaks out of marble.

Metro to Ottaviano across the river near the Vatican, where Gary and I stayed in 2005. I caught a bus back to Trastevere, had a salad, did some writing, and called it a day.