Cannons, Carabineri, and Calcio: AS Roma vs. FC Basel

During my whole time here in Rome, I have made it a priority to attend at least one football match at the Stadio Olimpico, where AS Roma and SS Lazio, the two resident calcio teams do battle every Saturday against other teams of the Serie A, Italy's premier football league. As our semester began to wind down, one fixture came to mind: the Derby della Capitale between Roma and Lazio, where an entire city would choose sides and battle for two hours. Sadly, tickets were unsurprisingly steep, but just as hope was waning, tickets for a match between Roma and FC Basel, a Swiss outfit, became available at a reasonable price.

Setting out into the cold Roman night on gameday, it became painfully aware just how far away the Olimpico was. Way north of the Piazza del Popolo, it took us more than an hour to reach the ticket stiles. Apparently, Italians are late for everything except for football matches, because will call had closed exactly at kickoff and our tickets were in the wind. Frantically, we rushed to the entrance and started pleading with the carabineri to let us in. After determining that we were indeed American students with a long standing affection for Roma (the fake jerseys probably helped), our tickets were finally delivered and we rushed to our seats.

Walking up the concourse, I was instantly overwhelmed, standing in one of the cathedrals of world football. 70,000 seats framed an immaculate field, and the songs and chats wafted down from the ultras section. However, fans were not happy: Basel had gone 1-0 up, and Roma was struggling. But as we shuffled through the packed throngs to our seats, fortunes began to turn. Roma began to dominate possession, with Captain Fantastic, Francesco Totti, pulling the strings from midfield. Soon after, Roma had a penalty, as Totti was hauled down in the box after trying to latch onto a crossfield pass. With the whole stadium waiting with bated breath, Totti stepped and placed his penalty in the bottom corner-cue massive celebrations, the aforementioned cannon shot crackling in the night air, and Totti's ubiquitous thumb-sucking celebration. 1-1, parity restored.

With the scores level at the break, the second half opened with Roma and Basel trading weak shots and wasted opportunites. But by the 60th minute, the game had once again tilted in Roma's favor. Urged on by the faithful, we (meaning myself and the three friends who had accompanied me) witnessed a spectacular team move. Receiving a throw-in near the halfway line, Totti flicked the ball with the outside of his right boot to his teammate Simone Perrotta, who took one touch to play it to Daniele de Rossi, the holding midfielder. Surging forward, de Rossi carved Basel's back line open with a defence-splitting pass to his striker, Mirko Vucinic, who blasted a left-footed shot past the helpless keeper and into the left corner of the net. The goal was a prime example of why I love football so much: free, flowing motion, capped off with an exquisite finish to set the Olimpico alight in celebration.

With the lead and qualification to the next round of the Europa League in hand, Roma set up shop to weather the impending Basel storm. Attack after attack crashed to nothing upon Roma's stalwart defensive line, aided by the interventions of an in-form Roma goalkeeper. The final whistle blew, the Olimpico cheered, and we went home happy, having experience easily one of our most memorable nights in the Italian capital.

Florentine Weekend

As the December 17th date crept closer, signaling the end of our time in the Eternal City, the class managed to stave off thoughts of leaving Rome with a weekend sojourn to the north, to visit the epicenter of the Renaissance, Florence. Having traveled to the city with my family two summers earlier, I was prepared for a rehash of previous events, but Brunelleschi's Duomo, Botticelli's Venus, and Michelangelo's David still managed to awe and inspire. After dropping our bags off in the hostel, I trekked back over the Arno to revisit an old friend: the quattro formaggi lasagna at Trattoria Gabriello, right off the Piazza Santa Trinita. It arrived piping hot, full of bubbly gorgonzola and parmesan, with a carafe of house red and crusty bread, and was just as good as the first time we met.

The group reunited to take in the Baptistry, Duomo, and the Museo Opera dell'Duomo all in one very jammed afternoon. After standing among the perfectly ordered symmetry of Arnolfo di Cambio's design and gazing upon Michelangelo's second Pieta, a small contingent broke away to scale the immense dome. Having hiked to the top of Saint Paul's in London and chipping away at my long-standing fear of heights, I felt I could deal my phobia another blow by climbing Brunelleschi's design. After countless stairs and too-small doorways, I emerged from the trapdoor to one of the most vast and breathtaking vistas encountered in my lifetime. The whole of Florence was laid bare for the eye to see, and I even managed to make a call home from the lantern to talk to the parents (probably not good for the phone bill, but why not?). Dinner was spent together with the group, where we helped ourselves to bistecca alla fiorentina: huge slabs of steak, cooked rare, and coated with lemon juice and olive oil. Very simple, but oh-so-good.

The next day began with a trip to Santa Maria del Carmine, to look upon Masaccio's Brancacci Chapel. Often called the "Sistine Chapel of the early Renaissance," it is certainly worthy of that moniker. Brilliant hues burst from the frescoed walls, and Masaccio's early mastery of perspective, chiarascuro, and humanism are all on display, and it is easy to see why Masaccio's work is considered the forerunner of Renaissance technique. The Bargello Museum was next on the itinerary, and we beheld the Bologna's bronze Mercury statue, two crowned lions (my favorite pieces in the museum), and the two competing bronze designs from Brunelleschi and Ghiberti for the Baptistry doors (Ghiberti won). The major highlight, however, was the recently restored David, by Donatello. An extremely curious piece, it is most famous for its extremely boyish and erotic pose, with one hand on his hip in an extremely effeminate manner. I was happy to view the statue, as it had been on the ground in the restoration cycle when I had last come to the museum. After the museum, we again had lunch free to ourselves, and three of us went to La Maremma, another favorite place of mine from my last visit. We shared plates of Tuscan salami, bruschetta with three different kinds of olive oil, after which we moved onto the pasta. Bucatini with duck sauce, lemon penne with sausage, and risotto with shaved truffle and gorgonzola were enjoyed by all.

Up next was the Uffizi, the mammoth museum packed to the gills with every Renaissance masterpiece imaginable. Everyone makes a beeline for the Botticelli room, and although such an action is certainly warranted, I lingered in the very first room, which contains three massive altar paintings of Madonna and Child, done by Duccio, Cimabue, and Giotto. Made with tempera (egg yolk mixed with pigment), viewers can see three different art styles depicting the same subject within the same room: Cimabue's Byzantine tradition, Duccio's Siennese influence, and Giotto's move towards the early Renaissance.

As our time in Florence drew to a close, we had time to step into Santa Maria Novella, seconds away from the train station. Notable for its Giotto crucifix and immense side chapels, we came for Massacio's Holy Trinity. Located along the left-hand wall, the fresco, like Massacio's work in the Brancacci chapel, demonstrates masterful use and understanding of perspective and foreshortening. The pyramidal form, with God as the pinnacle, is a perfectly ordered work of Renaissance style, and was an excellent cap to the weekend's activities.

Grandparents and Paella

After returning from the ruins of Pompeii, I had to turn around and welcome my grandparents to the Eternal City. Having visited my sister in Switzerland, the two Grand Tourists (pun intended) made their way down to my neighborhood for a few days, eager to see Rome's offerings. Unfortunately, the trip to Pompeii cut short our time together, but we still managed to visit several landmarks, including the Capitoline Museums, San Luigi dei Francesi, and sample some great food, with the lasagna al forno at La Scala a particularly memorable favorite. The two days spent with family was an enjoyable break from the grind of the semester.

A couple weeks of school passed by soon after, and semester break shined down on the mid-semester gloom. Classmates scattered to the four winds, some staying as close as the Florence, while others went as far afield as Morocco and London. I went to the latter, along with a small contingent of peers who were ready to revel in another, if slightly colder, metropolis. The four day sojourn marked my second trip to London, yet there were a few boxes on the "Tourists Guide to London" still left unchecked. Up first was Saturday Portobello Market, an exhaustive sprawl that makes the Winter Park Farmer's Market look like a garage sale. Walking down what felt like two miles, I passed all manner of goods for sale, including wrinkled maps, rusty telescopes, and counterfeit football jerseys. All the perusing made our group quite famished, so we helped ourselves to huge bowls of seafood paella, freshly prepared within massive pans along the street. Full of mussels, shrimp, and calamari, the dish was too good to be called mere street food.

Amazingly, my first London tour came and went without any trip to the famed British Museum. Seeing as how I call myself a history major and all, it would have been unbecoming to miss it. An absolutely massive complex, the British Museum contains items spanning over one million years of existence from all corners of the globe. I marveled at the Elgin Marbles (although I feel they would be better placed in Greece), crowded around the other tourists to gape at the amazingly well-preserved Egyptian mummies (sadly, none of them felt inclined to wake up and rampage around the exhibit-50's monster movies be damned), and admire a flawless jade turtle taken from the Near East. Like most public museums in London, there was simply too much to see in one afternoon, but it was an extremely informative and exciting tour nonetheless.

Frustratingly, something stuck in my craw as I sat on my flight back to Rome: having been a player and fan of soccer for almost 15 years, I was unable to attend a match in the birthplace of football once again. All in due time, all in due time.

Back in the Saddle

It's kind of hard to write blog entries without a functioning computer, but that problem has been remedied and it's time to catch up. First, the whole group took a weekend trip to Stabiae, nestled between the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. The trip was mainly focused on the ruins of Pompeii, but there were other opportunities to learn about the area, which had so famously been covered by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Our first excursion took us to a recent excavation in Stabiae, an imperial villa that at one point had the Bay on its doorstep. The most illuminating feature was its completely intact bath complex, consisting of four different rooms, each at a different temperature.

The next day took us to Pompeii, the famous city directly within line of the eruption. The city is surprisingly large, with incredibly long major avenues bisecting rows of tightly packed houses and shops. Several sights stood out: the "Cave canem" mosaic adorning the porch of a small house, the immense House of the Faun, and the ampitheater's perfect acoustics. We finished our weekend sojourn with a trip to the Napoli Art Museum, which contained the famous Alexander and Darius mosaic (taken from the House of the Faun) and an entire wing filled with colossal statuary from the Palazzo Farnese. My trip would not have been complete, however, without having a pizza napolitano, so I made my way to a pizzeria and had a slice filled with cheese, light tomato sauce, and sardines, which were surprisingly mild and much more tasty than the tinned variety. We returned to Rome, having had our fill of ancient cities and anchovies in equal measure.

St. Peter's and a Fat Guy

Wow, a month in Rome already. It hasn't seemed like that long, but when every day brings something new things can go by pretty quickly. Last week the Vatican class took its first trip to St. Peters to tour the Vatican Necropolis, located underneath Bernini's Baldacchino. We caught our first glimpse of the fabled Swiss Guards, whose Rainbow Brite uniforms only add to their sheer awesomeness (they are actually very cordial with everyone who passes by, and both guards gave us a one armed salute as we entered the grounds). From the entrance, the class descended past the throngs of gawking tourists (only we get the special tour, Ha-Ha!) and made our way into the extremely humid necropolis (for fear of peeling and degradation, the necropolis is kept at a very high temperature at all times). Originally used as a pagan cemetery, early Christians recycled several of the mausoleums and graves within the complex to house their own dead. We entered several family tombs, which were decorated with spectacularly stuccoed walls and mosaics (one tomb had an extremely rare image of the deified Christ ascending to the heavens, the first Christian symbol found within Rome). The group passed through the immaculate chapel of St. Clement, containing a ceiling made entirely of gilded gold taken from the Americas. However, the Vatican necropolis is most famous for holding the supposed bones of the Apostle Peter. Interred within small boxes barely viewable from the pathway, the site of their burial is located directly underneath the transept of the Basicila of St. Peter's. Quite a holy site, indeed.

Later during the week, the whole Kenyon group trekked to the Roman Forum for a primer on the formation of the famous public center. Lacking any real cohesion or organization (simply because emperors built their monuments wherever there was space), the Forum lies between the Capitoline Hill and the Palatine Hill. Although the Forum has been largely reduced to one large quarry, there are still several sights to behold: the triumphal arches of Septimus Severus, Titus, and Augustus; the Basilica of Maxentius; and the Roman Curia, which housed the Roman Senate. We finished our tour at the site of everyone's favorite postcard, the Coliseum. Begun under Vespasian and completed under Titus, the Flavian Ampitheatre is still the preeminent example of Roman engineering. But for all of its architectural importance, the Coliseum was a site of extreme cruelty and gruesomeness, as around 500,000 humans and over a million wild animals died within its walls.

Having had our fill of early Christianity and Roman construction, we walked to the foot of the Janiculum Hill to eat at Da i 2 Ciccioni (literally, Two Fat Guys). Truly a hole-in-the-wall spot, the owner and chef Gianni cooks whatever he feels like making that night and serves it to whoever happens by his kitchen. We started with bruschetta, spicy mashed potatoes, and beans before moving to heaping plates of pasta. Carbonara with pancetta, tortiglioni smothered in Pecorino Romano, and rigatoni alla' amatriciana (spicy tomato sauce with guanciale, pig's cheek) were all shared amongst the group. The secondi plates consisted of wonderfully moist and flavorful chicken sauteed in white wine, garlic, and rosemary, along with a thick seafood stew full of calamari. After downing a few glasses of limoncello for dessert, we left knowing that we had all found our new favorite restaurant. For me, it was easily one of my favorite dining experiences ever, and a wonderful end to a wonderful month.

Hills and Catacombs

On to the third week of my Roman "holiday," and the museum trips are getting more and more numerous. The whole class took a tour of the Capitoline Museum, next to the Piazza Venezia and one of the "seven" hills of Rome. Housing mostly sculpture, the Capitoline contains such pieces as the iconic She-Wolf, the Dying Gaul, and the Marble Faun (which Nathaniel Hawthorne took as inspiration for his book of the same name). It was one of those museums where there's simply too much stuff; there were around four rooms filled with over a hundred busts of Roman dignitaries. Still, it was an interesting antithesis to the truly postmodern Ara Pacis museum.

Yesterday the ten members of the St. Peter's history class took a drive up the old Appian Way to delve into the Catacombs of San Sebastiano, an important early Christian site for its use as a temporary tomb for the bodies of the Apostles Paul and Peter. We tunneled deep into the necropolis, and enjoyed a truly original experience. I hate to use the Indiana Jones reference again, but it really felt like a giant boulder was going to roll towards us at any moment. There were remnants of ancient frescoes, fully preserved sarcophagi dating from the 1st century, and a set of immaculate family mausoleums with the pottery shards still housed inside. Although I had to stoop the entire way (I guess everybody was 5'6 at the time), it was refreshing to view a Roman treasure that had not been trampled by the tourist horde.

Wait..we have to study?

These were the exact words uttered by my peers as we awoke on Monday morning. The first weekend, devoid of any papers or exams, was what we expected every day to be like. It was only when we shuffled into the Pantheon Institute that we faced the cold reality that we were actually here for business, and not for pleasure. Syllabi were handed out, books were purchased (my wallet went into cardiac arrest at the amount), and presentations were assigned. Within the first week, all of us began to slowly assimilate into Roman daily life. Supermarkets, traffic, and locals were all navigated with equal amounts of trepidation and confidence. Instead of culture shock, many of us felt wallet shock, as the burden of daily expenses made us acutely aware of our spending (probably a good thing in the long run). It was immediately made clear that cooking at home was infinitely more sensible than going out for dinner, as a meal for six in our dome cost as little as 3 euros.

Our first class trip took us to the Villa Giulia, the National museum of Etruscan art. Originally the summer retreat of Pope Julius II, the Villa Giulia now houses an extensive collection of Etruscan art, ranging from the Apollo of Veii to the Eurphronios Krater, an immaculate vase that the Met paid a million dollars for to highlight their ancient art collection. Following negotiations with Italy (the vase was stolen by tombaroli, nastier versions of Indiana Jones) the vase was returned and now rests in the Giulia. It was one of the more interesting museums I've been to, what with it being the Pope's residence and all.

Up next was the Ara Pacis of Augustae, and the subsequent museum it is housed in. Literally meaning "altar of peace," the structure was commissioned by Augustus to commemorate his reign of peace along with his return from campaigns in Gaul. Constructed completely of white marble, the altar is decorated with several friezes that borrow from the panels on the Parthenon, another example of the Roman affection for Greek design. The altar itself is housed in a building done by Richard Meier, an American architect and proponent of the Minimalist modern style. The clash between old and new is readily apparent, and Romans have both hated and loved the new structure since it was built in 2006.

Il Prima ora in Roma

Ciao, tutti!

If my first bar experience in Rome is indicative of my entire time in the Eternal City, then my semester will be a loud, messy, and altogether humorous one. As the twenty or so Kenyon College students got up from the Fiumicino Airport bar and shuffled towards the bus, a friend of mine was unfortunate enough to knock over a table laden with cappuccinos, glasses, and plates. As the items tumbled to the Fiumicino floor and red faces began to emerge, I could only clutch my oversized travel bags and hope that Italians would have a harder time identifying me as a clumsy tourist by the end of December. For one semester, I leave the comforting confines of Gambier, Ohio and get plunked down in the heart of Rome, where I will attempt to ingest as much pasta, gelato, and culture as I can (in that order).

After slowly navigating the streets with the rest of our backpack-wearing gaggle, we finally reached the safety of 30 Santa Maria dell' Anima, a former convent that served as our housing. We lugged our suitcases up five floors (we will have the most well-sculpted legs at Kenyon next semester) and piled into our various rooms. Dumping our things, we got our cameras and maps, ready to stride out into one of the jewels of Europe-but had a nap instead.