Whirlwind

It’s been a whirlwind so far, that’s for sure, with little or no chance (or willingness to spend 5 euro per hour, roughtly $7.00) to update. Thank goodness we’re now in Cortona with wireless!

We met up with the rest of the group in Vico Equense at Hotel Aequa on Saturday night. The hotel itself was quaint and overly decorative Italian style, almost rococo, and had the most wonderful view of the ocean and hills from the patio area. Sunday morning began the crazy running around (that is only now slowing down) and we went out to two museums in nearby Naples: Capodimonte Museum and the Archaeological Museum of Naples.

Capodimonte was wonderful, and we were given ample amounts of time (a tad too much, since we were sleeping on the lawn outside of the villa for a while afterwards) to go through the museum and sketch, since there were no cameras allowed inside. I ended up seeing a Caravaggio, a Massaccio, and another piece I had just studied last semester in Renaissance Art history… flippin sweet! I liked the pacing of going through, stopping at paintings that interested me, sketching forms or parts I liked, and moving on without a huge group on a tour. This was the last time I’d have enough time to actually do this… the rest of the museums we saw were incredibly rushed and crowded, and all I could do was snap a photo to work from later.

The Archaeological Museum was absolutely PHENOMENAL. It had one of the largest collections (if I’m not mistaken?) of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, wall paintings, and mosaics. These were probably some of the most amazing pieces to see in person: you just can’t see the nuances of sculpture from a slide in lecture. I stood next to the absolutely enormous Farnese Hercules, walked around the Farnese Bull, and got to see the Doryphorus (Spear-Bearer) – which, might I add, is one of my favorite sculptures second only to David – by Polykleitos in person. Dude, he’s got a lovely ass. I definitely groped the Doryphorus. The detail and color/preservation of the wall paintings was amazing, but the mosaics were by far more breathtaking. I can’t believe how small the tesserae are! Beautiful!

Everything was really stunning and humbling, but the most interesting part of the museum was definitely the Gabinetto Segretto, or “Secret Cabinet.” Archaeologists found quite a few items of “questionable content” used for worship and good luck among other things. It was decided that these were not appropriate for the general public and locked these away in a gated room, permission for visitation granted only by written request from special higher-ups. Now, it’s open to the public, and this concentration of seeing everything all crammed together only makes the entire situation extremely comedic. It was a room of penises. I kid you not. Giant stone phalluses, penis oil lamps, trinkets and necklaces, fertility gods, more anatomical terra cotta models of penises, wombs, and boobs, statues of boners and Pan having sex with a goat, as well as many wall paintings and mosaics found in brothels that were more like a “menu” of sexual experiences you could order from. The entire time I was going through the collection, I kept picturing my little brother Nicho or Adam giggling uncontrollably, which I guess made me have this awkwardly stifled smile on my face as I was trying to control myself. Totally awesome.

Monday, we left as a group for Pompeii and spent the morning going through the ruins. Lea, the art history teacher, had been giving us introductions and a brief lecture before going into each of the museums so far and, being an archaeologist specializing in ancient Roman art, gave us our own lecture through the city if we wanted to follow her, more off-the-path locations and more information than general tours. The ruins are huge, and it’s best to go extremely early in the morning when it’s cooler and less people. LOTS of tourists (as would be the case through the rest of the museums we’d see from then on out) and annoying guided herd tours. I saw a few castings of bodies and a dog, vessels found, marble counters in bakeries, amazing wall paintings still intact, etc. It’s not possible to list all the places visited, but I’ve got lots of great pictures of the whole thing and will be posting them shortly. I will say that walking along the super smooth roads under the looming Vesuvius in the distance was definitely eerie and had quite the impact.

Afterwards, we were on our own for the afternoon. Some people decided to go into Sorrento via train (being so close to the station), some went back to the hotel, some went into Naples for a contemporary museum, and some of us went for a hike. Me? I went for the hike, even though my feet were in definite protest and the sun was particularly unhappy with us. But it was worth it, because we weren’t just going for a hike, we were climbing Vesuvius. Yes, folks, THE Vesuvius. It was just a few of us, but we had enough to charter a bus for only about 8 euro each, which took us a ways up the mountain leaving us to hike the rest on our own. The climb was incredibly steep at about a 30 to 40 percent slope and zig-zagged back and forth for a vertical mile. It wasn’t too difficult, since there were people of all ages trying to climb it, but it was definitely a good cardio workout with an amazing view of past lava flows and the cities on the coast. At the top, about 5 of us followed what looked like a path even farther up to a particularly tall part of the cone. Turns out it was the path to service the antenna, but we were literally ON the rim, as in could have fallen into the crater if we took another step forward. I got some amazing pictures before we got yelled at in Italian and went back down. I guess you’re expected to stay at the chosen lookout points to see into the crater… oops.

Dude. I friggin’ climbed Vesuvius. Hellz yeah!

Tuesday we took all of our luggage out to the busses, leaving Vico Equense for Rome. On the way, we stopped for several hours in Tivoli to see Villa d’Este and Hadrian’s Villa. Villa d’Este was this enormous estate given to a general upon retirement, and he spent his earnings completely renovating the place and installing hundreds of fountains throughout the estate. This place was absolutely enormous, and indescribably beautiful. The place is built into a hill, using only gravity to operate all the fountains, and it’s still the same today: no electric pumps. It blows the mind! The landscape architecture students had an absolute heyday, and everyone got a chance to experience authentic lavish Italian gardens. Everywhere you looked, there was a fountain and a perfect picture, a statue, a particularly beautiful set of plantings, or a pond. I got to see real acanthus plants growing everywhere, along with roses and Cyprus trees and orange trees and too many others I can’t name. The entire garden was planned, as I said earlier, to utilize gravity to fuel the fountains, but it was also with a focus on the playfulness of fountains and falling water. There was even a fountain that played different notes like an organ. Everyone agreed that we would have liked more time; I was furiously clicking away at my shutter, wishing I had a chance to sit down and sketch, but we were on a tight timeframe.

Hadrian’s Villa was interesting, but not altogether exciting in my opinion. Most of the marble for Villa d’Este was taken from here, but there were still a lot of stone structures intact. I liked seeing the ties and influence that Hadrian’s Villa had on the previous place we visited. It was a huge estate, but not gardened or kept up like it originally would have been, which was a little unfortunate. I think at that point, everyone was getting tired and it was a bit of a lackluster second act compared to Villa d’Este. Worth seeing, but not the most interesting place I’ve been so far. We all got back on the bus and continued from Tivoli to Rome for dinner.

Our first trip into Rome on Wednesday was an optional early trip to St. Peter’s to climb the cupola, but when we got there, nobody was going inside and guards were present in preparation for the Pope to make an appearance. We mingled around, but couldn’t stay for when he showed up. Oh well! We went through the Campo dei Fiori (with awesome stands; great little place) on our way to meeting the group at Piazza Navona. From there, we went to Sant’ Agostino and San Luigi dei Francesi to see some great church interiors and Caravaggios in person. We went on to see the Pantheon, and I must say that I was really disappointed that the interior was converted into a church and all the original sculptures/tombs taken out. Sad. But I DID get to see Raphael’s current burial place, which was definitely cool! Afterwards, we went to the art store in Rome and the group broke up from there. I went with Mary, the jewelry professor, and a few other students into Travasere, a really up and coming artsy neighborhood just south of the river for lunch and some wandering afterwards.

Thursday was our tour of ancient Rome, starting at the Capitoline Hill (Campidoglio) and going down through the Roman Forum. The forum itself was really cool, but my favorite part was a contemporary exhibition going on within it. There were these giant white marble sculptures by Jiménez Deredia, which had a really amazing effect with the stark clean shapes among the ruins and columns. Most of them had to do with transformation from a perfect sphere to a woman holding a globe or some similar motif… really, really beautiful. Most of the other people on the trip hated that they were there, but I personally loved it and really, really enjoyed seeing them.

The Colosseum was next. It was cool, but people touring in large groups listening to a single person talking about everything from stop to stop REALLY need to learn how to not block absolutely everything. I guess the size is annoying, when herds of twenty to thirty crowd after a person with a flag on a stick not paying attention to anything else. It wouldn’t be so bad if the groups were smaller, or if there were less groups, but no. These were like icebergs moving on sludge… it made the experience rather annoying. The Colosseum was about the size of Sanford Stadium at UGA… it fits about the same amount of people. I wonder how drunk southern football fanatics would get riled up for blood sports? Anyways, I got to see it, and now I really feel like watching Gladiator.

From the Colosseum, I went with Mary and the rest of the Jewelery students up to Villa Giulia to see some amazing Etruscan jewelry. Let me tell you, the collection is impressive. The clasps and joints and details in excellent condition were really great to see and have given me a lot of ideas for my upcoming class! So many little trinkets, huge and elaborate necklaces and ornate bracelets, micro mosaics (seriously small!) precious stones and portrait coins, all from the pre-Roman/Roman era. Beautiful. We also stopped briefly at the Spanish steps, which were, as expected, impressive. A lot of people ended up going window shopping around there at all the designer shops.

Thursday night I went out with Jeremy and Hilda, wandering back to Travasere at night. Artisans of all types lined the bridge over the river, and I was SO tempted to buy up every piece of elaborately weird jewelry I saw… I guess leaving only 15 euro in your wallet before going out is a good precautionary measure. I did, however, end up getting a really awesome artistic globe lamp, one with white plastic wavy pieces you hook together that create a really awesome effect. Best part is, it comes flat and will fit in my pack on the way home. Saweet. We hung out in the piazza for a while, eating some gelato and enjoying the absolutely buzzing atmosphere before wandering back through Campo di Fiore to catch the bus. Great evening, very chill, great company.

Friday morning, I went our early with my Ancient Roman class to look at some famous funerary monuments of Trajan, Hadrian, and Augustus. Very cool, very extravagant. We then met up with the entire group at St. Peter’s square for a trip into the Vatican Museums. The artwork was amazing, and incredibly sad at the same time (so many sculptures hacked apart for censorship!). I enjoyed seeing the Laocoon statue in the courtyard, along with tons of other pieces all clustered together down countless halls. The unfortunate part was that this was the busiest museum yet, with huge groups competing with one another down cramped aisles, pushing and shoving to hear their guides and being oblivious to others trying to get by. There’s a reason we meet at the beginning for a quick talk before being released on our own to wander! The crowds in all of our trips were my least favorite part of the entire experience by far. That aside, the Sistine Chapel was truly remarkable, and I’m deciding that I like work on the ceilings best when trying to view in a crowd: no matter how many people are pushing and shoving beside you, there’s nobody blocking the view overhead!

Saturday morning, we packed our stuff and loaded the busses up for Cortona. We stopped along the way in a small town called Viterbo, having plenty of museum options to see while we had a few hours there. Museums are great, but I just wanted to relax! I ended up going through a local market (typical crappy flea market stuff) to kill time, and towards the end I found a stand selling vintage Italian postcards. Totally cool! The later part of the morning was spent outside a coffee shop/gelateria under an umbrella, sketching and talking to a few other people in no mood to move around.

And now, I’m in Cortona… FINALLY. Home sweet home, for now!