Rome – Day 9: Caravaggio and Tramezzini and Uccelli
This mornings breakfast of champions. You can’t always have a cornetto. Pizza bianca and mortadella. Yum. Just enough salt.
It was time to look for those time pieces. Off I went to Santa Maria degli Angeli, built into the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian.
Going to your right, in the main body of the church is the solar meridian I was talking about the other day.
The hole through which the sun is cast even gets a papal crest.
On my way to the Palazzo Barbarini, I stopped at S M della Vittoria for a look at Bernini’s famous Teresa in Ecstasy.
And then a stop at S. Carlo a Quattro Fontane, which was done by in wild man genius Boromini.
At the Palazzo Barbarini I saw the exhibit from Guercino to Caravaggio. It was pretty good.
There was this lovely Guercino, the Madonna of the Sparrow. There is a thin string from the sparrows leg to Christ’s hand. I particularly like the deeply maternal character of Our Lady.
Speaking of birds, in the main collection there is this Madonna and Child, with a surprise.
Not just one, but two Christological Goldfinches! This is rare. Umbrian, second half of the 14th c.
Back in the Caravaggio exhibit, Cavaraggio’s self-portrait as an ailing Bacchus. Probably made while convalescing after a kick from a horse, and maybe after he had killed a man. The stone is suggestive of a tomb, the unripe fruit of sin, the grapes – in two colors – of death and resurrection.
In the main collection, Battoni did a Madonna and St. Philip Neri.
One the way home, a great view of another of the mad masterpieces of Boromini, Sant’Ivo.
Lunch, tuna and tomato, like to those I ate for years at lunch time while living here in Rome.
Near the Trevi fountain, the church where the papal entrails are interred, SS. Vincent and Athanasius, still has the stemma of Benedict XVI. I find that comforting.
Just riffing off of yesterday’s intestine theme….
At 5 this afternoon, I have Mass in the crypt of S. Cecilia in Trastevere.
The post Rome – Day 9: Caravaggio and Tramezzini and Uccelli appeared first on Fr. Z's Blog.
