Day 11 - Appointment with the Borghese

We started the day off with a church because Mark didn't think we'd seen enough yet ;) We went to Santa Maria del Popolo. I didn't get a picture of the outside. Not sure why. Perhaps because the facades are almost always the same. In this church, we saw two Caravaggios and a Caracci. I took a picture of one before I saw that no pictures are allowed. But since I already took it, I might as well share it :)The Conversion of St. Paul by Caravaggio. Amazing!

That was the end of our church escapades in Rome (besides the Vatican, which we will be going to on Thursday). We then headed to Museo dell'Ara Pacis to see the Ara Pacis.

Pretty cool. The monument is all that is in the museum, so we headed to the next museum, Musei Capitolini, on Capitoline Hill.

Courtyard

Collosal statue of Constantine. The Colosseum is named such because this statue was by it.

Marcus Aurelius.

View of Rome from the windows.

Restoration

Dramatic baby

Dying Gallic Trumpeter!

I thought this was so cute. And strange

Room of the Emperors.

Septimus Severus. We saw his arch a few days ago.

Comitus. I don't really know anything about him.

Niro. He was an actor as well as emperor. This was frowned upon because it was seen as being too low for his station. Eventually he went crazy and the people assassinated him.

Caracalla. He was the son of Severus and was not a very nice person. This is one of the earliest examples of showing personality in a portrait bust.

Young flavian woman.

I love her hair. I remember wanting to try this for a dance. You think I could pull it off?

Heliogopolus. He perverted the ways of the people. He forced them to worship Helios, the sun god, instead of all of their many gods. The romans got sick of him and killed him. Then dragged him through the streets. Then tossed him in the Tiber river so that his soul would never rest. Yeah, they didn't like him.

Titus, of the Arch of Titus.

Espasius, his father or his son, can't remember. A very down-to-earth ruler.

Gordion III. He ruled as a very young man and was not well-liked. He was also assassinated.

Trajan. He was one of the best rulers of Rome despite his hairdo.

Ditous. He is famous because he initiated the biggest persecution of Christians.

Next stop: Galleria Borghese. The walk there was quite pretty.

And here it is.

Lori and Shamra excited to go in.

We had to wait until 3 to get in because that is when our 'appointment' was. I noticed a sign that said that the museum tickets were sold out until Saturday! I also noticed a sign that made me very sad: No photo :(

After checking our bags, we started off. We had exactly two hours to spend there and we did not waste any time. We went to the top floor first. While we didn't see anything famous there, we did see some incredible paintings. Then we went to the bottom floor and we got our minds blown away. Remember my true love Bernini? Well, his most incredible works reside in this museum.

The Rape of Persephone, where Hades' fingers press into what looks like real flesh. Apollo and Daphne, where a split second in time is captured when Daphne is half-nymph and half-tree. David, where the tension of the moment before he releases the stone is felt keenly by the viewer. I honestly cannot begin to describe how incredible they are. *Sigh* :)

And thus ended our day. It was wonderful and exhausting!