Santa Maria della Concezione
Cemetery of the Capuchins
Roma
The thing that gets me about this place is the smell. It's not actually the smell of bones and death, but a cloying incense that will now always make me think of bones. Everyone is more silent than they usually are in a church. This is serious business. Shawn says that we are not to take this as a joke, because the monks take this seriously. Not that it's particularly funny, but part of it is so strange it's comical. I try not to breathe in through my nose because I feel like I'm breathing bone dust. Do you know at the dentist, when you're getting a cavity filled, and he (or she) files down your teeth with a loud dental instrument, and you can see your own tooth dust, and you are breathing it in and it smells like burnt hair? It's a similar feeling of creepy. Inscription reads: "What we are, you will become." It's at the end of a long, dark hallway. I don't stay as long as the others. I'm not really bothered, but I can't separate the are from its material, and I don't think you're supposed to. Strange.
Raffaello's Lady with Unicorn
Villa Borghese
Roma
When a woman is painted with a unicorn, and she is able to tame it, it means she is still "pure." When she can't tame it...In the same room hangs The Baker's Daughter, a portrait of a girl that Raphael was in love with. Lisa says that in the original painting it was recently found that a wedding ring had been found on the girl's hand, and had been painted over. Secret marriage? A new chapter of an old romance revealed. It amazes me we can still find this out so many years later. Also, shock. Not the original painting? What other fakes have been presented to us? Oh well. The grounds of Villa Borghese are beautiful. I want to try the four person bicycle type conveyances. Neatly clipped lawns. It feels like the country but it's so close to the city. An oasis from the lack of vegetation. The green by the Tiber doesn't quite cut it; it's more like the green stuff in the Tiber. I didn't realize how much I missed it. I like Rome, but every city needs its parks.
Raffaello's Lady with Unicorn
Villa Borghese
Roma
When a woman is painted with a unicorn, and she is able to tame it, it means she is still "pure." When she can't tame it...In the same room hangs The Baker's Daughter, a portrait of a girl that Raphael was in love with. Lisa says that in the original painting it was recently found that a wedding ring had been found on the girl's hand, and had been painted over. Secret marriage? A new chapter of an old romance revealed. It amazes me we can still find this out so many years later. Also, shock. Not the original painting? What other fakes have been presented to us? Oh well. The grounds of Villa Borghese are beautiful. I want to try the four person bicycle type conveyances. Neatly clipped lawns. It feels like the country but it's so close to the city. An oasis from the lack of vegetation. The green by the Tiber doesn't quite cut it; it's more like the green stuff in the Tiber. I didn't realize how much I missed it. I like Rome, but every city needs its parks.
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