Dear friends, relations, and readers,
No, this isn't one of those "please send all your money" email tricks, or even a cartoon-style bucket of water over a soon-to-be-opened door. But Happy April Fool's Day, anyway.
The Italians enjoy the "Pesce d'aprile" day (April Fish). Here's two online ads from EATALY for 1 April. They are having a special tasting and sale of fish, at least at their Rome store.
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| Yes, it says "pearls before swine" at the bottom. |
I'm posting some of my sillier photos. A few are visual tricks that happened by chance, some are carefully designed Baroque-era visual puns, riddles or illusions.
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| Nice looking courtyard near the Pantheon, yes? |
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| Same courtyard, before photo cropping and cleanup, showing too many cars. |
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| Jesuit church "Il Gesù". |
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| Complete with real dome, loads of marble, frescoes, saints and angels. |
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| Here's the start of a big surprise in the church's transept, over the tomb of St. Ignatius (the founder of the Jesuits). |
1568: The church's construction began.
early 1700's: The altar (and tomb for St. Ignatius himself) created.
1773: The Jesuit Order suppressed. (It did come back later.)
WHAT this is: A very tall statue of St. Ignatius, originally of cast silver,
with the latest in 1700's technology to lower the painting that normally hides it. There presumably was also some mechanical music played, too.
1797: The silver statue (probably hollow core but still real silver) was melted down to pay Napoleon and his occupying troops. The machinery in the basement was forgotten about for two centuries.
What's here now is a copy, merely silver coated and gilded.There is a modern light-and-sound show of the statue being revealed daily in the church, usually around 5:30 p.m. This display does make a big visual impact, but I personally prefer the small, very simple nearby room that St. Ignatius once lived in.
Gladiator glamor??
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| This "ugly duckling" type is thought to have given great advantage in dodging the "nets of Neptune (god of the Sea)" in hand to hand combat. The pairs of gladiators were matched by types of weapons and defenses and by style of fighting. The gladiators were usually highly trained, skilled, (and expensive) slaves. |
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The "styles" changed over the few hundred years that gladiator games were held, and many of these adaptations gave advantages during specific types of combat. Some of these pieces were created to be used in various "swords and sandals" films. Not all of these outfits were scary; a few were to imitate a deity. |
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| "Boxing gloves". Nope, there was not any extra padding outside. These sometimes had spikes or sharp edges, too. There were also matches were literally "no holds were barred". The modern film pugilist "Rocky" would have had trouble fighting with these in a "Pankratio" fight. |
Turtles and Fountains
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| The Fontana delle Tartarughe is becoming a popular, minor tourist stop. There is another "turtle fountain" in Rome, not as elegant as this late 1500's embellishment to the Piazza Mattei (near the Largo Argentina). The other one is behind the Villa Giulia (now the Etruscan Museum), in a small garden. |
Well, yes, you can easily tell which is a fancy fountain and yes, there are four turtles there having a "sun bath" in a small water bubbler-pond. One never finds souvenir post cards of these little charmers, while the other fountain graces many a memento.
"Weighty" Matters?
Several of the older churches have reverently kept some odd objects, usually near the entrance door, for many centuries. Legends sprang up that these mysterious objects were stones tied to martyrs when they were thrown into the Tiber, or used to crush them alive, et cetera.
The centuries-long April Fool jokes on those pious, imaginative but under-informed medieval folks was these were the official ancient Roman weights and standard measures for the markets, that were kept in the temples that later became the early churches.
This photo may be a bit dark, but there are three such standard weights at the bottom of this caged display. Chains are often thought to have been torture tools, and perhaps some may have been.
Roman temples were often used as savings banks for the people (nice, safe and secure places), or as depositories of state funds (the Temple of Saturn in the Forum is a prime example). Mercantile contracts were firmed up by being sworn to in a temple, with a set number of Roman citizens as witnesses.
Oaths were often taken in Temples to the god Mercury (or Hermes to the Greeks). Everyone knew Mercury had several roles, pious ones as the messenger of the Gods, as the conductor of souls to the otherworld, but also as protective patron of travelers, merchants, thieves and liars.
Street performers.
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| There are many performers, musicians and hucksters awaiting the visits and coins of tourists. These laddies were at the rear of the Pantheon earlier this week. What attracted my attention was the number of guys, presumably from the same town, all hanging around the fakir.  Yes, he looks as if he is sitting on air. The poor schmoo is supported by a steel plate on the ground, (covered by flower petals), a steel post or two and a body harness. I presume the seven plus fellows hanging around were to a. collect the coins offered, b. keep a watch out for the cops, c. be able to haul away the steel supports, and d. have a relief sitter. My basically nasty mind was also wondering if they were keeping an eye out for where the tourists would put their money back after making a donation? Possibly these guys were keeping an eye out for OTHER pickpocket scouts, or possibly I've been in pick-pockets' heaven (Rome) too long?? RECOMMENDATION:IF you are going to give some money to street performers or beggars, before you leave for the day, stow a few buck's worth of coins in a pocket you can easily reach.DO NOT wander around Rome without some form of a hidden pouch, worn around your neck under your shirt, or a thin money belt, also kept hidden. Obtaining a new passport is complicated, time consuming and not cheap. PLEASE do not keep your ATM card PIN number anyplace where it can be snatched with the cards. This happened recently to a Roman I know and is every pickpocket's dream come true. For several years now, Emil has kept an extra, worn-out wallet holding only some cut newspaper in it in his back hip pocket as dummy-bait for the pickpockets. Perhaps it is an April Fool joke on them? |
Roma, la Città Eterna
Rome doesn't change MUCH, but it does change. Here's a late 1600's painting by Van Wittle of the Tiber and Castel Sant' Angelo (at that time a Papal fortress and prison, originally the large tomb for the Emperor Hadrian, now a grand museum).
That's a water powered grain mill floating in the river. The seventy foot high flood walls were not added until the late 1800's, and neighborhoods (and government buildings) surrounding the Castel didn't arise until then. St. Peter's is off this scene to the left.
Security Check lines
at St. Peters'
Even before the recent wave of terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, LaHore, there have been security checks before entering St. Peter's. The lines have always been awful.
Some twenty years ago these checks were rather casual, one would walk in single file past a couple of bored looking officers who might take a visual peek inside a larger bag one was carrying. For the past several years this has been upgraded to x-ray bag scanners and walk-through metal detectors like in airports.
This year is the first time there have been portable set ups for scanning bags and people at the major basilicas. The lines at St. Peter's are always the longest, because that's where people want to visit.
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| The piazza in front of St. Peter's. Notice the tiny dots, midway up the left side? That's the end of the line for the security clearance checkpoint. (This was NOT the start of the line at all, its head was near that construction scaffold in the mid background.) Below is the rest of that line. This photo is from 2011. The lines haven't improved much over the years. Solution: GO EARLY, well before nine a.m. if you don't want to stand around for an hour or so to enter.  |
The Walking Wounded.
I spotted this healthy looking fellow, who probably never wore high heels, making his way to Santa Maria in Trastevere. Almost every day I see young girls hobbling along with crutches or canes to cope with a sudden foot problem. I've even occasionally seen young women limping barefoot, holding onto their flimsy sandals.
Do wear very good, sturdy shoes when you come to Rome. Do some ankle, foot and leg strengthening exercises beforehand, unless you are already a prime athlete. Don't let the cobblestones and uneven paving make an April FOOL out of you.
One of the best jokes in Rome
does not start out with " . . . a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum . . ." but rather with this very complex optical illusion in the courtyards of the Palazzo Spada, built starting in 1632. Part of the Palazzo is a small museum (the rest is government offices). Many people on limited time budgets come to see this forced perspective and then have to scamper off without enjoying the small painting gallery upstairs.
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| The illusion was extended by frescoes of columns on both flanking sides, which of course have faded and fallen over the past 250 plus years. |
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A view down the right side. It was carefully calculated by a mathematician for the superb architect Borromini.
This looks as if it is very deep, but it isn't. It looks as if it is 37 meters long (it is only 8) and the statue in the rear is only 60 cm high.
(26 feet is forced to look like 121 ft. and the statue is only 2 feet high instead of the expected life-sized deity.) |
Streets with odd names.
Many very short streets in Rome have names that seem odd nowadays, usually because the original function, church or building is gone. The evolution of old dialect can make for odd sounding names, too. I have noticed at least three THICK books on the subject, and so will give you only one example,
the street of the chair makers,
via dei Sediari.
I remember in the early 1980's there were still several chair makers (chairs with straw or cane seats) and straw objects makers (trays, baskets, etc.) on this little block long street south of the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona.
In the last year or two, a number of fancier shops have sprung up in this area where a goodly number of tourists wander by. There are still a couple of nice, small bookshops (almost exclusively books in Italian) and there is ONE chair maker left. Not much of an April Fool's joke, though.
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| This is also not quite an April Fool's joke. This deer or elk(?) atop St. Eustachio is the symbol for the sainted martyr. An ancient Roman soldier was out hunting, and was about to slay his prey when a cross appeared between the antlers of the creature. He converted to the then illegal Christianity and was soon martyred for his new faith.
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| A long-time favorite, an elephant created by Bernini in the 1600's to hold an ancient Egyptian small obelisk then recently found under the adjacent church's building's (Santa Maria sopra Minerva), very near the Pantheon. |
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| What else can I say except "Happy April Fool's Day" THE END of this posting. |
all photos
(except as otherwise noted)
and text are
© Carol H. Johnson, 2016.
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