ROMAN REDUX: Part Two

ROMAN REDUX: Part Two
By the Lonesome Traveler

Mad Moses

I think I’m museumed out for this trip, but more on that later. I arose (well, not all at once, more in stages) at 7 a.m., agonized over my wardrobe choices for the day (one and a half possibilities), left, careened down the street bouncing off walls, situated cars, and old ladies who are always out at that time of day probably hoping to avoid people like me, crawled into a bar (coffee type), and had a cuppa and a roll. Thus fortified, I sauntered on down the street, no longer leaving a trail of old ladies writhing on the sidewalk and hurling epithets, and started looking for the hotel in front of which the bus I was waiting for to take me where I was going was supposed to stop, if and when it would deign to come (Yes I know that sentence needs fixing, but I’m not going back there alone; I might never return). This hotel turned out to be so exclusive that its name was affixed to a building three doors down, but a street sweeper finally pointed it out to me, using reverential tones and gestures that are usually reserved for cathedrals and football stadiums. Where am I going with all this? Oh, the bus. This was one of those hop-on-hop-off buses that make stops around the city, completing the circuit every two hours.

My first disembarkation was the Coliseum, but my destination was a ten-minute walk away. I was headed to the Peter in Chains church, built to house the shackles that Peter wore while a prisoner in Rome. Actually there are two sets of chains, one from Rome and the other from the time the angel set Peter free in Jerusalem. They are arranged, quite artistically, in a glass case in front of the altar. I was a little nonplussed by the “Made in Taiwan” imprint on one of them—just kidding. I forget the original chain of circumstances that made them both end up in Rome.

However, it was Mike, not Pete, who brought me here. The church, plain and unprepossessing, also houses the rather meager (with one magnificent exception) remnants of what was to have been Michelangelo’s crowning sculptural work, the tomb of Pope Julius II. Julius, just as forceful a character as Michelangelo, commissioned the work early in M’s career. Over the next thirty years he worked at it sporadically, but never got it anywhere near completion. Little things like the Sistine Chapel ceiling (also commissioned by Julius) kept interfering. After the Pope died, the money ran out, and M. ended up feeling he had wasted many of his best years on the aborted project. He did, however, complete the centerpiece of the tomb, a portrait of Julius as Moses.

I came expecting to be impressed, but I was stunned. Pictures simply don’t prepare one for the power of this work. To begin with it’s huge. Moses is seated, but if he were standing, he would be thirteen feet tall. He sits, the Ten Commandments under his right arm, tugging on his beard with his left hand, and head turned (turning) to the left. His left leg is flexed as if he’s just ready to rise; and, if I may be a little vulgar here, he is quite pissed off. This is the moment he realizes what the Children of Israel are up to with the Golden Calf, and he is not a happy camper. Disbelief and indignation mingle in his expression, and it appears as if the horns on his head are sprouting in his anger. Could you read much of this into the stone if you didn’t know the circumstances? Yes, I think so.

I’m beginning to understand what sets Michelangelo apart from other sculptors. They represent situations, ideas, likenesses; he creates personalities. The longer I looked at the Moses, the more I was drawn into its world. It was the same with the Pieta; somehow these sculptures take you in. I don’t understand how stone can be made to do that. I understand how it can represent someone or something; I have a much harder time understanding how it can be something that is as unique as a person himself.

I made my way to the Capitoline Hill museums, which, after Moses, may have been a mistake. Many of the halls and rooms of these two buildings are filled, almost to overflowing, with busts and statues, mostly Roman copies of Greek works. A few stand out: the Dying Gaul, a nude warrior with a broken sword, reclining on an arm that can barely support him; Venus, surprised at her bath and almost covering herself; the little domed room she is in sets her off quite nicely; and in bronze a small boy, concentrating on picking a thorn out of his foot—there’s a marble copy of this in the Borghese. The 5th century B.C. she wolf that represents Rome is here; a suckling Romulus and Remus were added during the Renaissance. There are several fragments of a huge bronze Constantine which had me smiling, while at the same time its sheer size is impressive. The head is about five feet from top to chin; the face is mostly intact but the pate is missing. The hand, in huge proportion, has lost most of the fingers; it once held a nearby globe, which is mostly whole. Were I Constantine, I might wish that the whole thing had disappeared; it is slightly ridiculous—though maybe it’s better to be remembered in gargantuan pieces than not at all.

I had planned to take in the Jewish Ghetto next, but it was hot, and I was tired. Instead I took the bus to St. Peters, irresistibly drawn by the Pieta. Despite the crowds (much greater than in March) and the almost constant barrage of flash cameras, the statue, as usual, transfixed me, and I actually felt sad at saying what was probably a final goodbye. Wandering around in the church, I spotted a small door leading to the crypt and Peter’s tomb, which I had missed the last time around.

Oh, a note on Moses’ horns: during the middle ages the Hebrew word for “halo” was mistranslated as “horns.” By M’s time they had it all straightened out, but he liked the effect they added to Moses’ ire. Under the circumstances they certainly beat a halo; that would have slipped all the way down to his ankles.

Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones

There’s a small nondescript church on the Via Veneto that I had been passing every day without noticing its existence. As it turned out, I almost missed one of the oddest of all the strange sights of Rome. The church belongs to the Cappuccin Order. When the monks died, they were buried in soil brought over from Jerusalem. After enough years had passed, and there was nothing left but skeletons; they were exhumed, and their bones were arranged in artistic, abstract patterns on the walls and ceilings of several rooms in the crypt. This practice went on for about 350 years from the 1500 to the 1800’s, so about 4000 monks contributed to this art project—that is a lot of bones. The effect is…exceeding strange. It’s not all that ghoulish—unless one thinks too much about what he is seeing. Thousands of skulls and larger bones are piled along the walls forming alcoves and niches where intact skeletons, clothed in brown Cappuccin robes, are standing or lying. The profusion of smaller bones are plastered on the walls and ceilings, including the corridor one walks down, in a variety of graceful patterns, mostly grouped with bones of their own kind. It is the clothed figures that make the scene truly macabre; without them the visitor can almost forget the reality. Some of these figures are partly mummified, and they grin as if in on some kind of ghastly joke. The floors are free of bones and are apparently used for normal internments.

There’s a religious purpose being served here; somehow it’s all supposed to show how the gospel has swallowed up death in victory—I’m not sure, though, how well the idea works. Death appears to have the upper hand. In one room a complete skeleton plastered onto the ceiling is holding a long handled scythe made of bones. This, the grim reaper, is the most dominant figure in the crypt.

The rest of the afternoon, I took it easy. I ate Chinese down around the Pantheon; strolled, an anonymous shadow among the crowds; ate a gelato; then drifted back to the hotel for a nightcap of a glass of water; and so to bed.

Oh, I almost forgot: tomorrow I’m going to Florence.

The David

Why Florence? Well, the first girl I ever kissed was Florence, Florence M___. Her family had come from Tuscany, and she was named after the capital city of that province. The other kids sometimes referred to her as “Minnie Mouse” because her upper front teeth protruded slightly more than was absolutely necessary—unless stripping the bark from a tree limb was somehow involved--but I thought she was mighty cute anyway, especially when she nibbled cheese. Actually, her condition was not nearly as pronounced as her mother’s; my dad, a man not ordinarily given to hyperbole, once remarked that she could probably kiss her husband goodbye after he left the house.

I diligently practiced on my forearm until the skin puckered, and my mother threatened to take me to the doctor to see if I had leprosy; but when the moment arrived, I still was not accomplished at the fine art of osculation. One problem was that because of those teeth she lacked a chin belay point below her lips; a second was that since I was in constant danger of hyperventilating during the act itself, I couldn’t keep any suction going. Because of these unresolved issues, I kept slipping off the target and down into a void past that nonexistent chin safety net. I didn’t realize until much later in my career that since I kept ending up in the vicinity of her neck anyway, it could have been an option.

She and her family moved shortly after the ordeal (I don’t think there was a connection), and I never saw her again. But I’ve always worried that she might have become a nun out of disappointment. Later I heard that the family had returned to Italy. Perhaps she had gone to her namesake city and ended up in a convent. Since I would be in the neighborhood, I would check it out; and if she were there, I would…but, no; it would never work: I’m too out of practice; my forearm, even shaved, is no longer as inviting as it once was; I probably could not avoid the void; and with those high collars that many of the older nuns wear, the neck still might not be an option. Best to let things be: I will go to Florence and see Michelangelo’s David instead.

Florence lies about a 130 miles north of Rome. This trip, along with the one to Pompeii in March, has allowed me to see a pretty good swath of central Italy. Although I’m not crazy about them, I took a guided tour. I’m not yet brave enough to just hop on a train and head for parts unknown. Perhaps if I had longer, but with only one day I’m afraid I would waste too much time just finding my way around.

There’s something about the Italian countryside that reminds me of America, but I’m never sure just which region. Of course, as soon as a town, village or even a single structure appears, semblances to the United States vanish. The motorway follows the valley of the Arno River; and many of the towns, founded by those mysterious Etruscans, are walled and perched high on volcanic hills. They cry out for exploration. If I get to Italy again, I want to see more of the countryside and the small villages. There’s lots of agriculture in this region: mostly tobacco, vineyards, and olive groves. There’s little heavy industry; that’s concentrated in the north around Milan. Italy is in the midst of a severe drought; and, according to the guide, must soon make a decision as to whether to use its water for agriculture or electricity and industry.

We arrived in Florence around 11 a.m. and stopped on a hill above the river to get a view of the city. Situated in the valley of the Arno, it is a lovely town of about a half million people. The gothic cathedral of Santa Maria dei Fioro, called the Duomo, dominates the skyline. Our tour proper began at the square of the Santa Croce church where we visited a leather factory; leather and gold works are two of the town’s main industries. Having no wish to get leathered up in the heat, I slipped out and visited the church. Buried there, among others, are Michelangelo, Dante, Galileo, Jones, Machiavelli, and Rossini—of Lone Ranger fame. Actually, there’s only a memorial to Dante: having assigned too many of his political enemies to the lower circles of hell in the Divine Comedy, he was banished from his home city.

After one of those ho-hum tour lunches (I ate with a lady from the United Arab Emirates who spoke little English and a lady from Alabama who spoke none but drawled it pretty well), we took a three-hour walking tour of the city. Florence is very compact compared to Rome; but, of course, we only got a smattering of what it has to offer: Michelangelo’s house, the home of the Medici, the beautiful bronze doors of the Baptistery (Mike said they were fit to be the gates of Paradise), and the Duomo with its modern, almost garish, façade and its plain, undistinguished interior. And finally, the culmination for me: the Academia, the museum housing the David. I’ve already carried on enough about M’s sculpture, so I’ll keep this to a minimum. Once again, even though I was expecting a lot, the David was so much more overwhelming and beautiful than I had anticipated: it’s a rare treat when reality outruns hype.

There are some unfinished pieces in this museum that were to have been a part of Julius’ tomb. These figures seem to be crying out to be released from the stone or struggling to realize their destiny. One can see how M. worked from front to back, the figure slowly emerging as if already fully formed within the marble—but, of course, that’s not really true. What makes the process even more remarkable is that the full creation existed, not in the stone, but in M.’s mind; and, perhaps, somehow, in his hands. His chisel marks are still visible, which gives these sculptures an immediacy the finished pieces don’t have.

There is another Pieta in the Academia (Michelangelo did four altogether). He sculpted the one in St. Peters in his early twenties, the one here when he was in his seventies (he was still chipping away at 87, a year before he died). This Pieta is much rougher and more modern looking, bordering on the abstract. In it two figures support the body of Christ as he is taken from the cross. They strain as if supporting an intolerable weight, as if his body does contain that which killed him, the sins of the whole world. This statue reveals only the essence of sorrow and loss; but that is enough. In its way it is as moving as his earlier one.

And then, back to Rome, dinner, and bed to complete a fourteen-hour day.

Farewell, Rome

My last day, and I’m not planning to do anything much, just a farewell stroll around Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon this evening. Currently, I’m sitting at a sidewalk café and writing up my journal…well, Rome still has its surprises: as I sit here scribbling, clip-clopping up the Via Veneto (one of the main thoroughfares of the city) is a two-wheeled horse drawn cart containing hay bales.

Later…

The Lonesome Traveler

Postscript:

As you have no doubt noticed, as an art novice I have been struggling to put down some coherent thoughts about Michelangelo’s sculpture and why it has affected me so deeply. By my own standards I’ve done a poor job. I’m going to take out my verbal chisel and have one more whack at it; so if you have had enough, now is the time to bail out and go do something practical that will make the world a better place.

While all of Michelangelo’s art that I have written about has a context, it seems to me that most of it is superfluous. In other words if you came upon these works without any knowledge of the circumstances, the history, or their creator, you would be little handicapped, if at all, in your understanding or appreciation. That is because Michelangelo has somehow managed to strip away all but the essence of a fundamental human experience, while at the same time keeping its representational form. To me that is an amazing and an almost unique accomplishment. I think much of abstract art attempts to get at the essence of things also, but in doing so it has to dispense with most of the representational. Without the representational, we move away from the feeling, emotional, human side into a more intellectual, abstract arena. We’re still connected with the human but not in such a visceral, immediate way.

When I look at Bernini’s realistically idealized works (is that too much of a contradiction?), I realize that without the background, the story, I lose too much information. I admire the skill and beauty, but without the context, there is a lack of meaning. But even when I know the story, these figures turn out to be mostly stock. Any feelings attached to these works are of a generic rather than an individual nature, and I share them only in an abstract way. Somehow these works miss the essence of a universal human experience that is at the same time individually unique. They insist on standing for something, and that limits the range and power of their appeal. They don’t exist as pure entities in their own right.

When I stand before the Pieta (and that’s important; the experience doesn’t come through nearly as clearly in pictures), I see the representational Mary and Jesus; that fact matters to a degree, but not a very large one (if you know the context, you can’t entirely divorce yourself from it). I see the forms, and that seeing connects me to the everyday human side, but what I also acknowledge is the universal--yet at the same time—uniquely personal, human experience of grief. Sorrow, loss, denial, resignation, and finally acceptance are somehow contained in the stone, the whole gamut of human grief. How is that possible? How can a piece of stone so purely distill an emotional experience? In my own experience of grief, the feelings are confused, fragmented, and transitory; but in this cold, dead stone I feel permanence, order, purity, and, in the end, serenity and acceptance. And all of this exists in its own self-contained world; the only thing it needs to reference is something inside of me. It is in this self-containment, and my participation in it, that the beauty, the wonder, and the genius of Michelangelo resides.

I do love words, but sometimes they are so inadequate—or maybe it’s the thinking that goes amiss. I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad; there are plenty of other things I can’t put into words either: love, obviously; my daughters’ births; my first glimpse of the Grand Canyon; evening light; the light and longing in another person’s eyes; but why go on? It would be a dull, dull world if we could explain it all.

TLT