Tossing coins into the Trevi, the last day of class!

Last Day of Class! by Richelle Mehlhaff

Wednesday was the last day of our Art History class and we heard presentations from Kelly Anthony on the Palazzo Barberini and Nicolette Moser on the Trevi Fountain.
The Palazzo Barberini was the palace where the Barberini family used to live in Rome. They were not a noble family in their older ancestry but had risen to power through their wealth getting positions in the Papacy and secular Roman offices. The Barberini Pope Uban VIII and the Barberini family were famous for patroning a lot of art work around the city. This palace is where both the papal and secular side of the family would live and entertain. The rooms are beautifully decorated with art that reflects the mission of the family to legitimize their power both the religious and governmental sections of Rome.

Here is the family coat of arms, three bees with the Papal keys and crown above them. Before this, the Barberini family crest was horseflies, but the Barberini Pope changed the crest to bees for their greater symbolism.

We also got a special tour inside the palace of a room with a ceiling fresco where Lisa Schultz did a lot of research for her dissertation.

Following Kelly’s presentation we walked over to the Trevi Fountain and learned about the history of the aquaduct that supplies the Trevi, the Aqua Virgin. Carving the Trevi Fountain took a long time and lot of money. Currently the money people toss into the fountain is collected daily, and totals around 3,000 Euros which is donated to a charity providing food to needy people in Rome, and to the Red Cross. The figure in the middle of the fountain is a river god with two figures beneath him representing the calm and wild side of the river.

Trevi Fountain

Everyone tossing coins into the Trevi!

Good job Kelly and Nicolette! What a great way to end the quarter!

Wednesday March 4, 2009

This is Heather, comparing the size of herself to the huge size of Constantine.

On Wednesday we adventured to the Capitoline Museums in Piazza del Campidoglio. The Capitoline Museum consists of two buildings; Palazzo dei Conservatori and Palazzo Nouvo. We entered Palazzo dei Conservatori and first looked at the very large fragments of Constantine's statue. The size of Constantine's head was taller than me! From inside the Conservatori we could still see parts of the Temple Of Jupiter. It was amazing that we could still look down a stair case or into a room from the temple. A new wing of the building was built to hold the original Marcus Aurelius statue. There were also a couple good pictures of what the marshy hill of the Capitoline Hill used to look like. Also inside is the famous “She-Wolf” sculpture of a wolf with Romulus and Remus underneath it. This sculpture is the ultimate symbol of Rome and we got a group picture around it! The upstairs of this museum is all paintings, including paintings by Caravaggio.

There is an underground passage that connects the two buildings of the museum. We took that passageway into Palazzo Nuovo. This building was added to the Campidoglio to complete the symmetrical look and so is a very narrow building. The main attraction to this side of the museum is the sculpture of Oceanus, which was in the courtyard.

Later in the day we had Mary’s class! We kept getting side tracked, but we had a good talk about the Sack of Rome and Martin Luther. We only have three more classes with Mary in Rome and we are all getting very sad that we are going home!

Ecstacy and Sacking

This morning was beeauuutiful so we took a dandy stroll up to the Quirinal Hill, where we stopped to visit the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. The church was built during the 17th century and was dedicated to Saint Paul for the discalced Carmelites. Inside the church is a very baroque style like we have been often seeing in these past few weeks, but contained inside is one of Bernini's favorite works: St. Theresa in Ecstacy. In our readings for Art history we learned about how Bernini achieved Bel Composto in his master of sculpting, architecture, and painting. Although he did not do any paintings inside the chapel, his use of different colors of marble show his mastery of color. Everything from the iconography he used to the his strategy of architecture all come together to create the bel composto of St. Theresa.


There is speculation that her gesture and the gesture of the angel in between piercings to her heart are overtly sensual. However, our class came to the conclusion that it was not sensual, but in fact gestures of love and pain. The angel is looking at St. Theresa with understanding while in between spearings to her heart. Lisa read us a passage from St. Theresa where she explained her mystic experiences of ecstacy she had with God, it was painful to the spirit but not so much to the body. Here Bernini sculpts St. Theresa in the moments before her death, which occured during one of her mystic encounters with God.



After seeing this church, we then made the trek down to Trastevere, where we went to the second church of San Francesco a Ripa. The church was dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, who visited and stayed in this area during his lifetime. One of the side chapels inside contains another work of Bernini's, The Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, which was commissioned for much less money than St. Theresa but we thought was equally as beautiful, although simpler in design and extravagance. The sculpture itself is of a similar nature, however Ludovica is not on her deathbed, but rather simply experiencing a moment of ecstacy with God, with Seraphims surrounding her. Those guys in my opinion are scarier than the puti, I do NOT enjoy either of them and could honestly live forever without seeing another puti or seraphim.
In the afternoon we had class with Mary, and learned about about the sacking of Rome. Some interesting facts that we learned today in class was that during the first stages of war, the Germans did the right thing in killing everyone in sight when they first sacked Rome. But then the next step was not to kill the people right away, and instead try and figure out where the people were keeping their loot, so they could steal it away and keep it for themselves. From Giuccardini's The Sack of Rome, we also learned that venerable relics were found and thrown around the streets. The heads of the likes of St. Paul and St. Anne were kicked around like balls, that is not very nice! The lucky few in Rome got to retreat to Castel San Angelo, while it was said that others went to the Colonna palace.