Skip to main content

Depicting Rome, pt. 6


Michelangelo's famous Moses sculpture at San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in chains), inspiration for weirdos as diverse as Sigmund Freud and Cecil B. DeMille (who cast Charlton Heston as Moses in The Ten Commandments simply due to the actor's physical resemblance to the statue--yes, I see the joke in that statement). The church also houses what are purported to be the actual chains with which St. Peter was imprisoned. The chains were originally housed in two separate locations, and when brought together in their current location miraculously snapped together to form one unbroken chain. Careful observers might see in this story a metaphor about the "unbroken chain" of papal succession dating all the way back to St. Peter, and by extension, Jesus.



href="http://bp1.blogger.com/__gpxUR3DFgI/SBoqDLcFlWI/AAAAAAAAARg/_74R-9w0sWE/s1600-h/P1040117.JPG">
This building was near the Casa Valdese--I was totally enamored with its frescoes depicting flocks of pigeons cavorting around its upper story. Maybe it's like a reverse scarecrow?



The sculpture of Giordano Bruno in Campo de' Fiori marks the spot on which he was burned at the stake in 1600 for heresy. It also features relief portraits of other martyrs to the faith, including Unitarianism's own Michael Servetus, featured below.








Last, the whipped cream and colorful topping of a cup of Roman hot chocolate, which is like drinking boiling pudding. Wow! Super-rich, super-thick, totally perfect on a rainy afternoon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Family and Gender in Ancient Rome

I mentioned below that Prof. Diane Lipsett delivered a wonderful lecture on the conversation currently taking place between New Testament scholars, family historians, social archaeologists and the like. The title of this post is actually the title of en entire semester-long course taught by Prof. Lipsett, so for our, geez, ninety minute session she condensed her focus to Men, Women, and Children in Ancient Rome. With her permission, I am posting my notes from this lecture below, tweaked a little for readability. Prof. Lipsett is interested in studies of gender formation among non-elites as well as elites, those people about whom we know much less because they did not have the resources or clout to commemorate and study themselves, generally speaking. Roman households were much broader than we conceive of in modern terms, with a wide spectrum of people connected by family and employment living under one roof (the terms domus/eikos/ikea capture this idea of an indiscriminate household
Post a Comment
Read more

New Post!

Of course I'll wait to update this damn thing until the end of the semester, when all the shit I've been putting off for the last few weeks and months is cascading down on me like a fountain of lukewarm Coors Light. After Tuesday, things will be a little less hectic, but frankly I'm just looking ahead to the end of the week. If anyone has any ideas about applying a psychoanalytic method of art criticism to the devotional aspects of Georges Rouault's Miserere (in particular Plate 23, Rue des Solitaires) and the pros and cons of doing so, I'd love to hear about it.
Post a Comment
Read more

Friday Night

I feel drained after this week. So I'm lifting weights by myself in the exercise room of the ArbCo Common House, doing KenKen puzzles in between sets, and feeling really glad I shelled out $30 on a cheapo Bluetooth speaker. It's astonishing that something that fits inside my water glass is capable of being too loud. Aesop Rock, Haim, Mike Doughty, Paper Tiger, and Lorde: this next set's for you. To come: some recent pictures I've made that I like.
Post a Comment
Read more