The Capitoline

One of the benefits of living in Rome is that we visit the sort of cultural sites we don’t get to in New York City as often as we would like.  We have the idea of going, but are busy working and assume the show will be there tomorrow, next week, next month, then time slips past and the exhibit we’ve read about is gone.

Living for a finite time in Rome, surrounded by things that have been around forever and will certainly be here tomorrow or the next day or the day after, our sense of time is more immediate and we make lists of things to see and do and actually go.

Maybe because it is usual to do nothing but work in New York, whereas it is unusually hard to get work done work in Rome, we have been visiting sites (in this case, because a trip was organized by the Academy) like the Capitoline Museums.

Set on the Campidoglio just above the Forum with a piazza designed by Michelangelo, the Capitoline is full of the detritus of ancient Rome: classical sculpture and archaeological finds from the iconographic statue of a she-wolf suckling Remus and Romulus to a pair of enormous marble feet the size of a car to a room of ancient marble busts impressive even to weary New Yorkers used to the bounty of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Leaving aside the fact that no building or institution in New York City is remotely as old as the Capitoline, whose foundation dates to 1471 making it one of the oldest public collections in the world, everything here seems weighted and manages to refocus our priorities to garner our attention: from a random Roman column that forms the corner of a restaurant to the starlings swirling overhead in the late afternoon bringing to mind the practice of augury, we are constantly aware here of how lengthy Rome’s history is, but how brief it will be for us.

Contraband Photo Series #1 or Getting Away with Things

In a bureaucracy like France, there are rules of engagement dictating how things will work and those rules must be followed, step by step.  Adopt the protocol and things will go swimmingly. Ignore the process, intentionally or not, and you will not get very far. In Italy, there are also rules and layers of procedures, but the rules are sometimes flexible and can change with each election.  This is a country where two of the current President's most admired traits are that he gets things done amidst chaos, including things that shouldn't be done, and that he gets away with things that shouldn't be done. 

Change here might mean that something once allowed has become unacceptable.  The person thwarting you from a desk or window might be saying, “No way, no how, and not for any particularly good reason,” like the woman at the post office who claimed there was no such thing as a post card stamp, so we went to another post office to purchase them.  Or perhaps the answer is, “You may not because the new administration's rules haven't been passed down yet, so no just in case.” And then there is the “No you may not until you shout like a lunatic silencing the angry figure who has appeared to impede you," which means you are going to get away with it.  Getting away with something seems to be a well-practiced sport here involving hand gestures, a flushed face, and a steely resolve.

One of the more frustrating rule changes is the randomly enforced prohibition against photography at museums or cultural sites, which is especially vexing as these institutions were created by and for art.  At some, guards stand by while visitors take pictures and at others, arms flail and eyes flash as a crazed form approaches ranting madly. In these instances, you tuck the camera away immediately, into your pocket or under your arm.  These photos were all taken against the rules, usually from my pocket or under my arm just to see what I would get, which is to say, what I would get away with while getting yelled at.

We visited the Sistine Chapel on one of those rainy late fall/almost winter days, when the little bit of gloomy light has disappeared by four in the afternoon.  From the front entrance to the chapel, a guard shouts “Quiet!”every few minutes.  The wandering masses pause for a brief second as if in detention, their necks craned and their heads titled towards the ceiling. Another guard patrols the crowd. There is a confusing sign with a symbol of a camera and a flash and an X over the drawing. Photography is permitted along the route to the Sistine Chapel, so I began taking photographs of people staring at the ceiling when the circling guard descended and demanded, “You will now erase.” (It is okay to photograph Raphael, but not Michelangelo apparently.)  He stood over me as I punched buttons on the camera and then I lied, “Sorry. I deleted them.”

Not satisfied,  the guard glared at me intensely as I put my camera in my bag.  He asked, “Why would you take photographs? There is a sign.”  I explained that the sign had a flash and so I was confused as photography is allowed throughout the Vatican.  He repeated, “Why? Why would you take a picture? The sign is very clear.” I apologized once more and noted that others were taking pictures as well, so the sign is not terribly clear. (One should never try to explain anything in a situation like this one.)  The guard locked his eyes on my face and reiterated over and over that the sign could not possibly be misunderstood by anyone. I was beginning to wonder what I should say besides, “I’m sorry” to make the guard leave me alone when my friend stared him down and said in a deep, stern voice, “She said she’s sorry; she won’t take more pictures.” The guard immediately turned away to pester another couple nearby. In Rome, whether one is enforcing the rules or breaking the rules, a forceful tone, (accompanied by glaring and hand gestures) is the way to get away with it.

The Realms of the Unreal

The very geography of the Academy cements a feeling of divine isolation because we enter by climbing up a steep hill (450 steps from the first stair in Trastevere to the last one near the Fontana Paola via the sharpest but most direct route) and then proceed through a series of gates and doors to get past the porter, the fountain, into the cortile, then on to the salone, the bar, or our room, which requires yet another flight.  

Inside our enclosed world, I am reminded that the word “paradise” derives from the Persian word for an enclosed garden and though it is sometimes too cold or too hot, and at this time of year the rain can drive down, just outside the windows hang fat Roman clouds against which smoky tendrils of starlings undulate and the dreamy cityscape is from a painting.  

Since we arrived I have been staying up much too late but on one of our earliest nights we were determined to go to sleep early, only to realize it was a holiday.  Live music thumped louder and louder into our room until we pulled ourselves out of bed and headed to the Fontana Paola to find it alive with people and noise.  In America, we have Hallmark holidays, but anyone wandering from the Campo Dei Fiori across the Ponte Sisto towards Trastevere late in the night (or early in the morning depending on your definition) might think that Italy has Red Bull ones.  

After that night of throngs dancing at the Fontana, I gave up on the idea of early sleep.  These pictures are from a cocktail party in September.  One night this week, a well-known multi-media artist and DJ gave a lecture/performance about his work.  The following night, an archaeologist discussed a large collection of antiquities she studies.

  

These two presentations were both, in essence, discussing sampling. The statues from the 19th century collection had been cobbled together from a mix of antiquities and modern elements, so much so that a statue said to be of the goddess Diana was actually comprised of 150 different pieces shaped together to create an idea of Diana. And where else but the Academy might dialogue be patched together between DJs and classicists?