Look up!!!

by Giorgio Albanese

When you walk around Rome you can find something interesting and different in each corner, so don't forget to have a look around you...there are so many interesting things to see even where you don't expect, like this Madonna image at the corner of the Via della Dogana!!

Going to Rome???!! You must visit the Trevi Fountain

One of the most beautiful fountains of Rome, symbol of power and richness, it  was designed by Nicola Salvi in 1732 and completed in 1762. 

In 1629, Pope Urban VIII, asked Bernini to sketch possible renovations of the fountain, finding it insufficiently theatrical. After the Pope's death the project was abandoned. Bernini's lasting contribution was to situate the fountain from the other side of the square to face the Quirinal Palace (so that the Pope could see and enjoy it). 

my boy at the side of the fountain

All the information you need to know about this fountain are here:

The Trevi Fountain

Rome: Saint Peter's Basilica

Saint Peter is the symbol of Rome, of Christianity and beauty for the magnificent artworks created by Michelangelo, Gianlorenzo Bernini and many more...

For any type of information on Saint Peter have a look to this site:

Saint Peter Basilica

Below are random photos back in 2007:

My children on Saint Peter Square in January 2007

The Barberini's heraldic symbol 

Gianlorenzo Bernini's Baldachin

Michelangelo's Pieta' (1497)

A castle in Rome: Castel Sant'Angelo

Castel'Angelo has an amazing story behind it. It was originally built as the Mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian. The long and varied history of the building, with its thousands of metamorphosis seems to have unsettled the complicated maze of underground rooms, balconies, stairs and courtyards that constitute the current structure of the castle.

The original structure and subsequent changes within the building overlap and merge, creating a body faceted and complex, laden with symbolic and historical layers.  

this photo was taken when I was on holiday

on the bridge you can see the two angels commissioned to Gianlorenzo Bernini.

Not far from the Vatican, this amazing building should be one of the stop during your Italian journey!!!!

Where is the original Marcus Aurelius?

On the Campidoglio hill, where are all the main offices of the Sindaco of the city, two buildings host the Musei Capitolini of Rome, the eldest publique museum of the world (1471) founded in obedience to Sisto IV Pope's wish. 

image from wikipedia

The Cordonata Stair and the entire square were projected by Michelangelo and strongly wanted by Pope Palo III before the visit of emperor Carlo V in 1536. The sacre place, once the center of the ancient Rome, was in ashamed conditions. Michelangelo suggested to build a third Palace, Palazzo Nuovo, to enclose the space of the square. 

The project was finished only after Michelangelo's death but following his original drawnings. Nowadays, Palazzo Nuovo and Palazzo dei Conservatori host the Musei Capitolini, the first public museum of the history opened in 1734. 

First rooms are dedicated to the sculpture and keep some beautiful Roman bronze statues as the Spinario, depicting a young man in the act of taking off a thorn from his foot or the famous Lupa Capitolina, feeding young brothers Romolo and Remo, a real symbol of Rome. The upper floor, dedicated to the painting, hosts works by Caravaggio, Veronese, Guercino, Rubens and Tiziano.

                                                                   Lupa Capitolina

An underground passage will bring you to Palazzo Nuovo principally dedicated to the the sculpture. Palazzo Nuovo also keeps the original Marco Aurelio's equestrian monument once placed in the center of the square.

Scott and the Marco Aurelio

Taking a photo!!

For any further information:

Musei Capitolini

I LOVE ROME!!!!

Trilussa: a Roman poet

In Piazza Trilussa in Trastevere, not far from Ponte Sisto, there is the monument to Carlo Alberto Salustri, nicknamed Trilussa (1871-1950), another famous poet of Rome for his sonnets.

Trilussa


On the plaque, next his bust , one of his most famous sonnets:



Here the translation:

IN THE SHADE

While reading the usual newspaper,
snuggling in the shade of a haystack
I notice a hog, and I say: - see you, pig! -
I notice a donkey and I say: - see you, jackass! -
Maybe these animals won't understand me,
but at least I feel satisfied
with the opportunity of saying how things are for real
without the fear of landing in jail.

Next week I will see this in person on my daily walk!!!

Coming out of there...who are you?

Corso Rinascimento 

If you walk along Corso Rinascimento in the evening you come across many different politicians in the process of leaving Palazzo Madama, the main Baroque facade on this street. Here is where the Senate sits.

Palazzo Madama by Simona Albanese

Originally the palace belonged to the Crescenzi family, a powerful Roman family, to then pass to the Medici family during the 16^th century as part of the dowry of Alfonsina Orsini. Only later the current façade was enlarged to receive this enormous entrance. The name of the palazzo “Madama” has its origin in Margaret of Parma, illegitimate daughter of Charles V, who married Alessandro de’ Medici first and then Ottavio Farnese. The palace was purchased by the Pope Benedict XIV in 1740, to become successively the residence of the Governor of Rome and finally the seat of the Ministry of Finance for a short period of time during the second half of the 19^th century.

Today the palace is the seat of the Senato della Repubblica or Italian senate, which together with the Camera dei Deputati in Montecitorio, compose the Italian Parliament.

Open to the public on the first Saturday of each month, excluded August, this place is worth a visit!

Buona visita!!

Festa del papa' in Rome: Father's day pastries in Rome

Bigne' di San Giuseppe

In Italy we celebrate Father's Day on March 19th, when for the Roman religious calendar is Saint Joseph, Rome celebrates this festivity with the Bigne' di San Giuseppe. 

Here a simple recipe for you:

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups water
• 5 Tbs butter
• 3/4 cup flour
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp limoncello (lemon liquor)
• 1 Tbs vanilla
• confectioners sugar
• oil for baking sheet

Direction


In a medium pot, bring the water to a boil over high heat. When the water comes to a boil remove the pan from the heat and add all the flour at once. Stir immediately until smooth. Add the butter and return the pan to medium heat and keep stirring. The flour and water will form a ball. You will need to stir until the ball no longer sticks to the sides or bottom of the pan.


Remove from the heat and allow to cool and then add one egg at the time. Stir each egg completely into the pastry before adding the next. Stir in the limoncello and vanilla. 


Let the batter rest for at least 15 minutes. Using a soup spoon, place spoon size pieces of batter on a greased cookie sheet. Leave at least 2" between the drops of batter. 


Bake at around 200 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 185 degrees Celsius. Bake for another 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. They will be approximately double in size. Turn the oven off and let the pastries "dry" in the oven. 


Don't remove until they are completely cool. Gently open and fill with pastry cream or custard. 


Dust the tops with confectioner's sugar.


Tanti auguri papino!!!

Italy celebrates 150 years of unification

Italy commemorates its 150 anniversary this year. Today, March 17th, is the day of unification, therefore many events have been organized for free in many different cities of Italy.


If you are in Italy on holiday today make the time to go and see one of them!!
Here a list for you:


TURIN

LA BELLA ITALIA
ART AND IDENTITY OF ITALIAN CAPITAL CITIES

at La Venaria Reale, which will reopen to the public, and will present the House of Savoy and celebrate the Reggia with its dazzling architecture, that makes it one of the finest examples of Baroque internationally.

FORLI'

Dal Papa Re al Regno d'Italia. Quando i forlivesi diventarono italiani

Documentary exhibition of the Unification of Italy. The exhibition is divided in different sections, focusing on the events of the nation between 1859-1861, and in particular on how the political unification impacted on the society of Forli'.

The exhibition will be at the Archivio di Stato di Forli'

VENICE

Free entry at the Sale Monumentali della Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana

ROME

Centocinquantenario dell'Unita' d'Italia

http://www.soprintendenzabsaelazio.it/

COSENZA

Buon Compleanno Italia

Free entry at the Archivio di Stato di Cosenza: Complesso Monumentale San Francesco di Paola

MANTUA

Le Carceri dei Martiri di Belfiore

Special opening at the Museo di Palazzo Ducale, Castello San Giorgio

Today is a day to celebrate, so have fun and have a nice glass of spumante!!!


AUGURI ITALIA!!!

Caravaggio - between Rome and Milan

Last year many exhibitions have been organized all over Italy to celebrate the fourth centenary of Caravaggio's death, including the solo exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale, where majors artworks of Caravaggio were on display.

This year in contemporaneousness, Rome and Milan have something new to display:

Palazzo Venezia in ROME will show the results of the x-ray carried out on the three paintings of the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi: Martyrdom of St Matthew, Call of St Matthew, and St Matthew and the Angel. 

The results of these exams are extraordinary, they show the techniques used by Caravaggio, his pentimenti and the compositional changes.  

Particular in the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew

The exhibition is in:

Palazzo Venezia, 

Via del Plebiscito 118,

10 March -15 October 2011

MILAN, instead, will  present an exhibition on "Gli occhi di Caravaggio" at the Museo Diocesano curated by Vittorio Sgarbi.

This new exhibition illustrates the birth of the genius Caravaggio. Reconstructing his artistic training, from Simone Peterzano to the Veneto and Lombard masters, this fascinating show examines the precursors and contemporaries of Michelangelo Merisi (1571-1610), highlighting the works that the artist would actually have seen and what he would have witnessed in the artistic climate that dominated the area from Venice to Milan before he moved to Rome, which according to the most recent studies was likely to have been around 1595-96.

The exhibition gathers around sixty masterpieces by the greatest painters of the day, including Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Lorenzo Lotto, Jacopo da Bassano, Moretto da Brescia, Giovan Battista Moroni, Gerolamo Savoldo, Vincenzo and Antonio Campi, Giovanni Ambrogio Figino, Simone Peterzano, and many more, some of which have never been exhibited before, document the formation of a groundbreaking aesthetic and an innovative conception of the human figure and its relationship with space and light, which was fundamental to the development of the young Merisi.

Naturally Caravaggio himself could not left out, and the exhibition includes some extremely significant works. One of these is the so-called “Murtola Medusa”, the first version of the famous shield in the Uffizi Galleries, which takes its name from the poet who wrote a poem about it in 1600.

This work, which has always belonged to a private collection, was created by Caravaggio in 1596 and can be viewed as emblematic of his formative years, in particular due to the under drawing which was brought to light by recent in depth scientific investigations. The same techniques have been used to date the shield to between 1596 and 1597, the period when Caravaggio moved to Rome. Conceptually speaking, in this way the Murtola Medusa closes the painter’s Lombard period and opens the Roman one, when, as Vittorio Sgarbi recalls: “he suddenly transformed everything, to the point that the shock waves of his revolution reached the whole of Europe, and there was not one great painter who did not come from France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands to see what Caravaggio had done”.

The exhibition is in:

Museo Diocesano from 11 March to 3 July 2011.

SO IF YOU GO TO ITALY, YOU CAN CHOOSE BETWEEN ROME AND MILAN!!

Buon proseguimento!!

Via dei Cappellari in the vicinity of Campo de Fiori

Another characteristic street in the heart of Rome!! Just of Campo dei Fiori is Via dei Cappellari or Hatter's Street in English. 

In the past on this street there were shops or botteghe where they manufactured  hats. 

Note the word: cappelli or hats.

The traffic policeman of Piazza Venezia

Piazza Venezia is a busy intersection in the center of Rome. If you have to cross the road here to go towards the Forum or Via del Corso o Via del Plebiscito is better to wait the signal of the traffic policeman.

There are not traffic lights here!!! But it is amazing how a traffic controller can keep up with all the confusion of this big square!! Believe me ..

What Pasquino will say today???

Next to Piazza Navona there is Piazza Pasquino, where there is one of the talkative statues of Rome, called Pasquino. 

The statue is an ancient Roman torso placed in the square in 1501. This became known as a 'talking statue' to which people attached witty or caustic criticisms of the people who ruled the city. 

Even today people are used to leave messages on the statue to make satirical comments called pasquinade.

If you visit Rome have a look to what the people had to say!! 

Michelangelo's Moses: speak!!



Moses by Michelangelo

 Pope Julius II commissioned this project, his tomb, to Michelangelo in 1506, but it was only completed in a later date, between 1542-1545, after many years of desegreement with the Pope's heirs. In fact, the pope wanted his monument to be exemplary and Michelangelo planned a burial chamber that would be a truly architectonic structure, with statues of the old and new testament figures at different levels, but obviously the project was never approved.


The project scale was reduced and the work was never placed in St. Peter's but in San Pietro in Vincoli, not far from Via Cavour, where Julius II was ordinated cardinal.

The statue of the Moses shows his extraordinary force, the tension in the veins and muscles, in the posture and in the furious expression: he can't only speak!! That's why this is considered one of his masterpieces, together with the Sistine Chapel and the David in Florence.

Lorenzo Lotto: a master artist at the Scuderie del Quirinale

Lorenzo Lotto, Annunciation, Pinacoteca Comunale, Recanati

I remember seeing this artwork, the "Annunciation" by Lorenzo Lotto in Melbourne about nine years ago. This work was the cover of the book: "Titian to Tiepolo: Three centuries of Italian Art", an exhibition which traveled around Australia and other continents with a selection of Italian artworks, including Lorenzo Lotto's Annunciation from Recanati.

This year the Scuderie del Quirinale celebrates this artist with a wonderful exhibition: it will consider the whole story of the artist painting, his existential works within the triangle Treviso, Bergamo and some small towns in the Marche by highlighting and enhancing the poetry of a man of the fifteenth century, his successful and  completely original and independent works to reconcile the traditional elements of great painting of his time, anticipating the Baroque era.

Lorenzo, in fact, starting from the suggestions of compositions by Giovanni Bellini, Antonello da Messina, learned to look into the human soul to tell us a story. Just think of those light flashes or the cold way of cutting perspective planes: they are the antithesis of the soft and the merger of coloristic contemporary Giorgione. Its composition is held, instead, according to tight schedules, highlighted by the intertwining of looks and attitudes varied characters, often set in an particular atmosphere but linked by the realism of the details and with a view of nature felt as a mysterious and disturbing. 

A complex human story, then, narrated through a selection of key works, will help the viewer to love Lorenzo Lotto. 

The art exhibition will be at the Scuderie del Quirinale between March 2nd and june 12th. Don't miss it!!