43319 (Bonn, Madrid and Rome tourism), страница 3

Via del Plebiscito forges west from Piazza Venezia past the church of Gesu, a high, wide Baroque church of the Jesuit order that has served as the model for Jesuit churches everywhere. It's notable for its size (the left transept is surmounted by the largest single piece of lapis lazuli in existence) and the richness of its interior, especially the paintings of Baciccio in the dome and the ceiling's ingenious trompe 1'oeil, which oozes out of its frame in a tangle of writhing bodies, flowing drapery and stucco angels. Crossing over, streets wind down to Piazza di Campo dei Fiori, home to a morning market and surrounded by restaurants and bars. South of the Campo, at the end of Via dei Balestrari, the Galleria Spada (Tues-Sun 8.30ain-7pm) is decorated in the manner of a Roman noble family and displays a small collection of paintings, best of which are a couple of portraits by Reni.

To the left off the courtyard is a crafty trompe 1'oeil tunnel by Borromini, whose trick perspective makes it appear four times its actual length. Across Via Arenula, through and beyond the Jewish Ghetto, the broad open space of Piazza della Bocca diVerita is home to two of the city's better-preserved Roman temples, the Temple of Fortuna Virilis and the circular Temple of Hercules Victor, both of which date from the end of the second century ВС, though the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, on the far side of the square, is more interesting, a typically Roman medieval basilica with a huge marble altar and surround and a colourful and ingenious Cosmati mosaic floor - one of the city's finest. Outside in the portico, the Bocca di Verita gives the square its name, an ancient Roman drain cover in the shape of an enormous face that tradition says will swallow the hand of anyone who doesn't tell the truth.

The Centro Storico

You need to walk a little way northwest from the Capitoline Hill to find the real city centre of Rome, the Centro Storico, circled by a bend in the Tiber, above Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The old Campus Martius of Roman times, it later became the heart of the Renaissance city, and is now an unruly knot of narrow streets holding some of the best of Rome's classical and Baroque heritage, as well as its street - and nightlife.

The boundary of the historic centre to the east. Via del Corso, is Rome's main shopping street and cuts straight through the heart of the city centre. Walking north from Piazza Venezia, the first building on the left is the Galleria Doria Pamphili (10am-5pm; closed Thurs & last half of Aug), one of many galleries housed in palaces belonging to Roman patrician families. Its collection includes Rome's best cache of Dutch and Flemish paintings, canvases by Caravaggio and Velazquez's painting of Pope Innocent X. The second left after the palace leads into Piazza Sant'Ignazio, an odd little square dominated by the church of Sant'lgnazio, which has a marvellous ceiling by Pozzo showing the entry of St Ignatius into paradise, employing sledgehammer trompe 1'oeil effects, notably in the mock cupola painted into the dome of the crossing. Stand on the disc in the centre of the nave for the full effect.

Follow Via di Seminario from here and you're standing in front of the Pantheon (daily 8.30/9am - 6.30pm; free) on Piazza della Rotonda, the most complete ancient Roman structure in the city, finished around 125 AD. Inside, the diameter of the dome and height of the building are precisely equal, and the hole in the dome's centre is a full 9m across; there are no visible arches or vaults to hold the whole thing up; instead, they're sunk into the concrete of the walls of the building. It would have been richly decorated, the coffered ceiling was covered in solid bronze until the seventeenth century, and the niches were filled with statues of the gods.

There's more artistic splendour on view behind the Pantheon, in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, one of the city's art-treasure churches, crammed with the tombs and gifts of wealthy Roman families. Of these, the Carafa chapel, in the south transept, is the best known, holding Fihppino Lippi's fresco of The Assumption, below which one painting shows a hopeful Ohviero Carafa being presented to the Virgin Mary by Thomas Aquinas; another depicts Aquinas confounding the heretics in the sight of two beautiful young boys - the future Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII. You should look, too, at the figure of Christ Bearing tin Cross, on the left-hand side of the main altar, a serene work painted for the church by Michelangelo in 1521.

In the opposite direction from the Pantheon, Piazza Navona is the most appealing square in Rome, an almost entirely enclosed space fringed with cafes and restaurants that follows the lines of the Emperor Domitian's chariot arena. Pope Innocent X built most of the grandiose palaces that surround it in the seventeenth century and commissioned Borromini to design the church of Sant'Agnese on the west side. The church, typically squeezed into the tightest of spaces by Borromini, supposedly stands on the spot where St Agnes, exposed naked to tin-public in the stadium, miraculously grew hair to cover herself.

The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi opposite, one of three that punctuate the square, is by Borromini's arch-rival, Bernini; each figure represents one of the four great rivers of the world - the Nile, Danube, Ganges and Plate - though only the horse, symbolizing tin-Danube, was actually carved by Bernini himself. It is astonishing to think that Mussolini once planned to plough a boulevard straight through the piazza.

Just out of the north end, you'll find Palazzo Altemps, functioning as part of the Museo Nazionale Roniano and featuring the unmissable ancient statuary collected by the Ludovisi family. The highlight is the original fifth-century-BC Greek throne, embellished with a delicate relief of the birth of Aphrodite. East of Altemps, the Renaissance facade of the church ol Sant'Agostino is not much to look at but the church's handful of art treasures might draw you in - among them Raphael's vibrant Isaiali, on the third pillar on the left, Sansovino's craggy St Annr, Virgin and Child, and, in the first chapel on tin left, a Madonna and Pilgrims by Caravaggio, which is badly lit, so come prepared with coins for the light box. There's more work by Caravaggio down Via della Scrota, in the French national church of San Luigi dei Frances!, in the last chapel on the left: early works, describing the life and martyrdom of St Matthew, best of which is the Calling of St Matthew on the left wall - Matthew is the dissolute-looking youth on the far left, illuminated by a shaft of sunlight. A little way up Via della Ripetta from here, the Ara Pads Augustae (closed for restoration) was built in 13 ВС to celebrate Augustus' victory over Spain and Gaul. It supports a fragmented frieze showing Augustus himself, his wife Livia, Tiberius, Agrippa, and various children clutching the togas of the elders, the last of whom is said to be the young Claudius.

At the far end of Via di Ripetta the Piazza del Popolo provides an impressive entrance to the city, all symmetry and grand vistas, although its real attraction is tin-church of Santa Maria del Popolo, which holds some of the best Renaissance art of any Roman church, including frescoes by Pinturicchio in the south aisle and two fine tombs by Andrea Sansovino. Two pictures by Caravaggio get most atten tiou - the Conversion of St Paul and the Crucifixion of St Peter.

Villa Borghese

At the northern edge of the city centre, the Villa Borghese (Metro Flaminio or Spagna), now beautifully restored, is made up of the grounds of the seventeenth-century palace of Cardinal Scipione Borghese - a vast and peaceful area of woods, lakes and grass. The main attraction is the Galleria Borghese (Tues-Sun 9am-7pm), which has an assortment of works collected by Scipione Borghese, notably sculptures by Bernini and a small, but fine collection of paintings: Aeneas and Anchises, Rape of Proserpine, Apollo and Daphne and David.

The Villa Borgheses two other major museums are on the other side of the park, along the Viale delle Belle Arti. Of these, Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia (Tues-Sun 8.30am-7.30pm) is the worlds primary collection of Etruscan treasures.

The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Tues-Sun 8.30am-7.20pm) houses an undistinguished collection of nineteenth - and twentieth-century Italian are including works by Modigliani, Di Chirico, Boccion and other Futurists, along with the odd Cezanne, Mondrian and Klimt.

South of the centre

On the southern side of the Palatine Hill is the Circo Massimo, a long green expanse that was ancient Rome s chariot racing track. The arena once held a crowd of 200,000, but now a litter of stones at theViale Aventino end is all that remains Across the far side of Piazza di Porta Capena, the Baths of Caracalla are better preserved, and give a much better sense of the scale of Roman architecture. It’s a short walk from behind the baths down Via Gitto to the Protestant Cemetery, accessible direct on metro line В (Piramide stop), the burial place of Keats and Shelley - a small, tranquil enclave, crouched behind the mossy pyramidal tomb of Caius Cestius.

San Paolo fuori le Mura, 2km south, is one of the four patriarchal basilicas Rome, occupying the supposed site of St. Paul's tomb. Of the four, it has fared k well over the years, and the church you see is largely a nineteenth-century recon struction after a devastating fire. It is a huge, impressive building, and home to a handful of ancient features in the south transept, the Paschal Candlestick is a remarkable piece of Romanesque carving, supported by half-human beasts and rising through entwined tendrils and strangely human limbs and bodies to scene from Christ's life, the bronze aisle doors date from 1070, and the Cosmati cloister, just behind here, is probably Rome's finest, its spiralling, mosaic-encrusted column enclosing a peaceful rose garden.

Further south still, on the edge of the city, the Via Appia was the most important of all the Roman trade routes. Its sides are lined with the underground burial cemeteries or Catacombs of the first Christians. There are five complexes in all, dating from the first to the fourth centuries, almost entirely emptied of bodies now but still decorated with the primitive signs and frescoes that were the hallmark of the then-burgeoning Christian movement. You can get to the main grouping on bus #218 from the Colosseum (Via San Gregono in Laterano), but the only ones of any significance are the catacombs of San Callisto, burial place of all the third-century popes, whose tombs are preserved in the papal crypt and the site of some well-preserved seventh - an eighth-century frescoes, and those of San Sebastiano 500m further on under a basilica that was originally built by Constantine Tours take in paintings of doves and fish, a contemporary carved oil lamp and inscriptions dating the tombs themselves - although the most striking features are three pagan tombs discovered when archeologists were burrowing beneath the floor of the basilica upstairs. Nearby graffiti records the fact that this was indeed, albeit temporarily, where the Apostles Peter and Paul rested.

Trastevere

Across the Tiber from the centre of town, Trastevere is a small, tightly knit neigh bourhood that was once the artisan quarter of the city and has since become gentrified. It is now home to much of its most vibrant and youthful nightlife - and some of Rome's best restaurants The best time to come is on Sunday morning, when the Porta Portese flea market stretches down Via Portuense to Trastevere station in a congested medley of junk, antiques and clothing.

Afterwards, stroll north up Via Anicia to the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere built over the site of the second-century home of the patron saint of music Locked in the hot chamber of her own baths for several days, she sang her way through the ordeal until her head was hacked half off with an axe. At the back of the church you can see excavations of the baths, though hints at restoration have robbed these of any atmosphere. If you get the chance, have a peek at the Singing Gallery's beautifully coloured and tender frescoes by Piero Cavallim.

Santa Cecilia is situated in the quieter part of Trastevere, on the southern side of Viale Trastevere, the wide boulevard which cuts through the centre of the district. There's more life on the other side centred on Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, named after the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere - held to be the first official church in Rome, built on a site where a fountain of oil is said to have sprung on the day of Christ's birth and sporting some of the city's most impressive mosaics, also by Cavallim North towards the Tiber, the Villa Farnesina is known for its Renaissance murals, including a Raphael-designed painting of Cupid and Psyche, completed in 1517 by the artists assistants. Raphael did, however, manage to finish the Galatea next door. The other paintings in the room are by Sebastiano del Piombo and the architect of the building, Peruzzi, who also decorated the upstairs Salone delle Prospettive which shows trompe 1'oeil galleries with views of contemporary Rome - one of the earliest examples of the technique.

Castel Sant'Angelo, St Peter's and the Vatican Museums

Across the Tiber from Rome's old centre, the Castel Sant'Angelo was the burial place of the Emperor Hadrian In the sixteenth century, the pope converted the building for use as a fortress and built a passageway to link it with the Vatican as a refuge in times of siege Inside, rooms hold swords, armour, guns and the like, while below, dungeons and storerooms are testament to the castle's grisly past as the city s most notorious Renaissance prison Upstairs, the official papal apartments, accessible from the terrace, are extravagantly decorated with lewd frescoes amid paintings by Poussin, Jordaens and others Via della Conciliazione, which Mussolini ploughed through the old borgo to seal a pact with the pope, leads to the Vatican City (Metro Cipro), a tiny territory surrounded by high walls on its far side and on the near side opening its doors to the rest of the city and its pilgrims in the form of Bernini's Piazza San Pietro.