Random photos

a lot of things I take photos of never quite make it to the blog because they don't really merit a big long post of their own, so here is an amalgamation of some photos I've taken that I want to share. 

for my Michelangelo class one day, we went to a marble workshop to get a feel for what it was really like to carve marble. and let me tell ya - it was hard! it's hard enough to make a dent in the stuff, much less turn it into a masterpiece. major props to Michelangelo. 

Carrera marble

nearby the famous Bramante Tempietto is the lookout spot on the Janiculum hill, not one of the 7 hills of Rome but still a tall hill nonetheless with a spectacular view. it's hard to see but you can see the Vatican from here!

Janiculum Hill

Rome has a lot of organized strikes and protests. we happened upon this one totally by chance, and at first I was scared by all the SWAT running around. it was an education reform protest, all from students. good for them. 

protest in front of the Il Vittoriano monument

we visited Bernini's Sant'Andrea al Quirinale church, which is a really spectacular Baroque church with a concave/convex exterior and a longitudinal interior. the ceiling and walls are inspired by the Pantheon. 

the altar

for my introduction to art of Rome class, we visited the Vatican Museums, definitely my favorite museum of the ones I've seen. I didn't get an image of Leonardo da Vinci's St. Jerome, but it's worth a look! he's pretty unrepresented in Rome, though not unsurprisingly.

St. Peter's basilica

Raphael room containing Madonna of Foligno, Transfiguration (there's a copy in New St Peter's too), and the Crowning of the Virgin

the next two are two of the Raphael Stanze frescos, the private rooms of the Pope, decorated to reinforce the power of the papacy. ironically, some 10 years later Rome was sacked and the pope was arrested. you can see German graffiti on the walls of the Stanze.  

School of Athens. can you spot Plato/Leonardo da Vinci, Aristotle, Euclid, Raphael, Michelangelo, Perugino/Sodoma, Socrates and Pythagoras? Bramante and Donatello might be in there too!

Fire in the Borgo

the next two photos are from New St Peter's.

Michelangelo's Pieta. it was amazing to see it in person after all the essays I've written about it... it's kept behind glass to protect it from crazy art defacers. 

the interior of St. Peter's. you can barely see the basilica, designed by Michelangelo