In five years the planet will have been decimated by the Coronavirus. The few remaining people will be savages, dirty and dressed in rags, killing each other for food and scraps of Bitcoin. There will, however, be plenty of free parking.
I did not foresee this future when Denise said we must go to Rome. I looked up from my newspaper and ventured, “Why?”
“Because I just booked two non-refundable tickets.” She explained that the airfare was less than €150. Plus, she found an Airbnb within a half mile of the Vatican. Five days for only €250.
A few days later we learned of some new disease, a Coronavirus, creating a stir in China. Weeks later, as we boarded the plane, we heard that Milan, just 350 miles north of Rome, had pretty much quarantined itself. The disease was spreading.
Our Airbnb host had arranged for a car to take us from the airport to our apartment in Rome. At the edge of baggage claim a man would be holding a sign bearing our name.
Whenever I get off a plane and walk past a guy holding a sign with a man’s name, say “Jason Smith,” I wish I was that man. Someone Jason Smith didn’t even know was anxious for his arrival. Jason was going to ride in a limousine and stay at a fancy hotel and drink champagne while nibbling on snacks I couldn’t even pronounce. Tonight, in the Eternal City, Denise and I would live like Jason Smith. Awesome!
Our driver did not have a limo, but it was the biggest Chrysler sedan I had ever seen. We sat comfortably while he drove through the night to the narrow cobblestone street where we would find our temporary home. Once there the driver stopped in the street, the car so large no other vehicle could get by, and honked. A young man leaned out of a second floor window and yelled something in Italian. The driver yelled something back. The young man disappeared from the window and in a few moments opened the front door and led us upstairs.
We were in a huge apartment building with a heavy wooden door. The entryway was cavernous. The walls had once been white, but now were a dirty eggshell color with mysterious black streaks. We walked up marble steps that sagged in the middle, the stone worn from decades of foot traffic. We would not be bumping into Jason Smith here. I thought, “I guess this is what you get in Rome for €50 per night.”
The apartment, however, was delightful. Spacious and clean. Comfortable. Denise had found us a very good deal.
The room was a very good deal because we were traveling in February, possibly the best time to visit Rome. The temperature is a delightful 60 degrees. The crowds are reduced, as are the prices. There is no downside to Rome in February, except the possibility of catching a fatal illness. This did not scare me, however, because I had read somewhere that Coronavirus had not yet reached central Italy.
Our apartment was on Via Dei Riari, a street on the west side of the Tiber River. Via Dei Riari and all the neighboring cobblestone streets are wide enough to accommodate two passing Smart cars, if at least one driver sucks in his gut.
The roadways are bordered by massive concrete and stone buildings. There is no gap between the buildings, and they all share the same facade, giving the impression that each block holds only one massive structure. A cobblestone sidewalk is raised slightly and narrow enough that two pedestrians must shift their shoulders to let each other pass.
In fifteen minutes or less you can walk from our Airbnb to a half dozen different restaurants. Real Italian restaurants catering to Italians. Restaurants serving food so good that you are left wondering why Italians don’t all weigh 300 pounds. A thirty minute walk will get you to the Vatican.
The Vatican is the business office for the Catholic Church. It is sometimes called the Roman Catholic Church even though it was founded by some guys from Jerusalem. But early on they moved corporate headquarters to Rome, I suppose for the same reason Johnny Carson moved the Tonight Show from New York to Los Angeles.
Not that Rome was immediately hospitable to Catholics. In 64 AD the Emperor Nero persecuted Christians, blaming them for the fire that destroyed most of the city. People were killed simply for being Christian. Historical evidence reveals that early Catholics resented being murdered for their faith. Time was on their side, however. In 380 AD the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire. This was a glorious event because now the church could persecute and kill people for NOT being Christian.
The Catholic CEO is called the Pope. He lives in the Vatican. It is politically correct to refer to all popes as “he” rather than “he or she” because only men can be Pope, or even a priest. This is a rule strictly adhered to by the church for the very good reason that it has always been a rule strictly adhered to by the church.
The Vatican has a museum which houses some of the world’s greatest works of art. Every year over five million people will pay €27 to pass through the museum and the attached Sistine Chapel. That’s €135,000,000 (about $150,000,000) in tax-free revenue each year. And that’s not counting proceeds from the gift shops or restaurants, or the €2.50 they charged me for a small plastic bottle of water.
Don’t get me wrong. The museum and Sistine Chapel are worth every penny. When we visited there was a special collection of more contemporary artists, like Salvador Dali, Picasso and Monet. The museum displays so much amazing art that the merely wonderful begins to look mundane. Even the museum walls and ceilings, decorated by some of the best European artists to have ever lived, justify days-long study.
Theoretically, €27 allows one an entire day in the museum and Sistine Chapel. The reality, however, is that there is an enormous crush of people moving forward, ever moving forward, making any effort to linger over a particular statue or painting a bit like trying to study the bottom of a water slide as you hurtle toward the pool below.
Denise visited the museum and chapel about ten years previous. She knew that the route recommended in the official brochure would have us go through the entire museum before arriving at the Sistine Chapel. By the time we got to the chapel it would be hopelessly crowded. We should go to the chapel first, then take our time moseying through the museum.
With that my dainty bride rushed through the already packed museum, her head down and arms pumping, children and ancient penguin nuns flung sideways in her wake. I sprinted, sidestepping other tourists like OJ through an airport. At one point Denise chanced a glance back at me, saying, “Isn’t this wonderful?”
Having seen only a blur of people, the masses ignorant of the need for speed, I assumed she was referring to the run. “Yes,” I panted. “But how much further to the finish line? I think I can only do a 5K.”
Eventually we reached the chapel. It is smallish for a church, only 132 feet by 44 feet. There are bench seats along the two longer walls. If you don’t get there before the benches are filled you can appreciate Michelangelo’s ceiling frescos only by standing with your neck craned backward. Colors are muted, the only light being from two small windows near the 65 feet high ceiling.
I stood squinting at 600 year old frescos by perhaps the greatest artist to have ever lived, dumbstruck, and then jumped as though slapped in the face. An excessively loud amplified voice had barked that everyone in the room must be quiet. This not only was unexpected, it was bizarre because everyone already was respectfully quiet. The room had been as still as a tomb until some bastard with a microphone broke everyone’s reverie.
Denise nodded at the picture of a naked man in hell. A snake wrapped around the man’s body was biting his penis. Denise whispered so low I could barely hear, “That is the image of a man who criticized Michelangelo’s work.” I quickly looked around, afraid that an actual whisper might get us beat up. Luckily, Denise was heard only by me.
For the next fifteen minutes all was quiet. If anyone else uttered a word I did not hear it. Once again the amplified voice, like an angry death metal rocker, sternly chastised the crowd, apparently for thinking about whispering. “THIS IS A SACRED PLACE,” the death metal rocker shouted into his microphone. “SO PLEASE BE QUIET!”
After studying the chapel’s ceiling and walls we decided to move on, to return to square one and tour the museum in the recommended order. As we did the crowds got larger. When we got back to the Sistine Chapel the death metal rocker was again needlessly scolding a silent crowd. The room was packed tighter than a sardine can. Denise’s insistence that we break land speed records getting to the chapel had been justified.
I will tell you more about Rome. However, first I want share an observation arising from our recent travels to Denmark, the Netherlands and Barcelona.
In Denmark and the Netherlands there are statues of naked ladies. I wouldn’t say the statues are abundant, but they are not uncommon, and they are completely nude. I notice statues of completely naked ladies because I love art, and for no other reason.
What I never saw in Denmark or the Netherlands was the statue of a naked man. However, I did not notice this omission until I toured Rome.
In Rome here are statues everywhere, and almost all of them are of naked men. It is a complete sausage fest. And none of the men look anything like the Buddha. These guys are real beefcakes, every one.
Once in a while there might be a topless woman, but she is never completely naked, and usually is there just to adorn a much larger and more completely naked man.
I don’t know if you ever noticed Michelangelo’s depiction of Eve, but she looks like a young Sylvester Stallone with a boob job.
I have no theories about why Romans liked to look at naked men more than naked women, or why their naked women were built like Rocky Balboa. But I would be shirking my duty as an unpaid volunteer gadfly not to report the observation.
I do not recall seeing anyone naked in Barcelona. I mention that city because Rome has St. Peter’s Basilica and Barcelona has La Sagrada Familia. I thought of the latter as I toured the former.
The exterior of Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia is, like most of the architect’s work, extravagantly ornate. Lots of sculptures and spires and colors, all full of complex meaning and vague purpose. However, Gaudi knew that a church’s interior should be a place for reflection and awe. He designed a space with (literally) awesome stone columns and natural light filtered through stained glass. The colored glass bears no images and the church contains no statues or paintings. It is quietly and stunningly beautiful in the way a redwood forest is quietly and stunningly beautiful.
St. Peter’s is gorgeous, but the inner space is filled with statues, mostly of dead popes. Whereas La Sagrada Familia is a place to reflect on the beauty of God’s creation and of one’s place in the universe, St. Peter’s is a monument to church bureaucracy.
Of course there will be those who disagree, and violently so. They will remind me that Michelangelo’s Pieta, possibly the most evocative statue ever created, is in St. Peter’s. But it is off in a corner and a good twenty yards behind a dusty glass wall. One might just as well view the sculpture on TV. Besides, that one amazing artwork cannot make up for the overall excess which can only be described (ironically enough) as “gaudy.”
Others will insist that it is disrespectful, even heretical, to refer to St. Peter and other Christian martyrs as mere bureaucrats. But I believe St. Peter himself would agree that the expression is justified.
When Nero condemned St. Peter to die by crucifixion the martyr asked that his cross be turned upside down. He thought himself too unworthy to die in the same manner as the Son of God. And yet the church named for him, in the center of the Vatican, has at its center a giant wooden monument over the grave of St. Peter. This ornate monument, and all the statues of other dead popes, dwarf any tribute to Jesus Christ, and inspire less internal reflection than a trip to Graceland.
Were he alive, I am convinced that the man who believed himself unworthy to be crucified right-side-up would shake his successors, shouting, “Are you mad? This space should be about Jesus. Compared to him I was a mere bureaucrat! You and I, we were all bureaucrats!”
Of course I could be wrong. Possibly God heard me express these thoughts after our Vatican visit, considered them blasphemous, and that is why I woke up at 2 a.m. unable to breath through my nose, my voice raspy, and was barely able to get out of bed. Maybe He decided a little Coronavirus, or whatever it was that struck me down, might give me a better attitude.
In three days I was fully recovered. As you can see, my attitude has not improved.
That’s why I am updating my will.
Another great about your visit to Rome
As always, an extremely entertaining read. Thank you, mi Amigo…