giorno due (day two)

ciao amiche!

Day two started late in Roma as I finally caught up on my sleep after 15 hours of much needed rest. Today was a Roma tour fest. In the afternoon I went and saw the Monumento A Vittorio Emanuele II who was the first King of the united Italy in 1861. This building became a focal point at the end of world war I when they added the tomb of the unknown soldier. This act was very memorable to many italian families since nearly a million italian soldiers were killed or wounded, many of them never seeing a proper burial. Emanuele's grandson, Victor Emanuele III became the leader in both world wars and supporter of Mussolini until nearly the end of his reign. Italy as a monarchy ended shortly after 1946 largely due to his rule. The build was full of art work from Italys violent past and had great view of the city and roman forum.

each providence has a lady represented on this

a view down via del corso, a "large" steet in Roma

After we took some time to explore the vast Roman Forum. We stumbled across the Mamertine Prison which is where Saint Peter was held by the romans. This was a pretty sorry place to be held. With only a hole to exit through this was just one of a series of cells that were rather wet and equiped only with a small hole of water which St. Peter used to baptise his fellow prisoners.


We then roamed (get it!) the rest of the forum, though we couldnt get down into it. Its pretty amazing to see the technology in person that they had 2000 years ago, especially things that are still intacted like the Traiani Forum, more famous because of Emperor Trajan (Trajans Column, Trajans Market, etc...)

trajans column

After a brief jaunt for a studio meeting I continued to explore and went to see the River Tiber (very fast), the Teatre di Marcello (very crumbly), and the Coliseum (very archy). The Tiber river is interesting since is basically the entire drainage for the city of Roma, which probably has about one tree per mile. Because of this the levels fluctuate quite a bit (they were almost 30 feet higher just a few weeks ago!). We went to the Isola Tiberina (Tiber Island) the large island south of the historical roman city center. This houses a large ospedale (hospital) and that's about it. The Teatro di Marcello is a very interesting building to me and one I will be using for my independent study (which is about Italian theatres and how their design and space was influenced by culture and politics). This was build by 12 BC and was one of the first three built theatres in Roma. The third tier was reconstructed during Mussolini's reign and used as apartments for government officials.


Historical Roma is made up of seven hills, the Quirnial, Viminal, Esquiline, Capitoline, Palatine, Caelian, and Aventine. The Palatine hill is the centermost of these and is the mythical place where Romulus and Remus were found by the she-wolf that kept them alive. Roma is named after Romulus who killed his brother and founded the city. Anyways, its a big hill, and I walked around the whole thing...

Back to the Coliseum. This is a fascinating building for many reasons. It was finished in 70 AD and origionally called the Flavian Ampitheatre, used to killing lions, Christians, gladiators, slaves, whoever... The Church took power of the Coliseum in the 17th century to preserve it, many ideas were used, make it into a wool factory for prostitutes, use it for bull fights, or just preserve it and keep people from using it as a quarry. More recently it stood as a symbol for protest against the death penalty in Italy, and since the death penalties abolishment it is bathed in both white and gold light. The white is normal, the gold is used when anywhere in the world someone is released from the death penalty of the jurisdiction is abolished.

this is an arch

this is a coliseum

Anyways, it was a full day. I stopped by the Trevi Fountain again from my first Italian gelato (ice cream) which was amazing and drank some of the fountain water! And that concluded day two.

buononotte