Today we met the American ambassador to the Holy See. Essentially, he deals with all kinds of things Vatican. He's a theologian who's lived all over the US before this, and he has a wife and four kids. He was a very nice guy who explained some things that he was working on with the Vatican and the White House to get some interfaith stuff going as well as awareness for HIV and AIDS. We got free bookmarks and plenty of pictures of his staff. Also, he told us that y'all should go like the American Embassy to the Holy See Facebook page, because they're currently beating Italy and want to keep it that way. The man is a pretty cool guy and speaks like more than five languages. Go him.
AND HIS HOUSE HAS AN AMERICAN FLAG IN IT. He said we were a little piece of home, and he kind of was for us too.
On the way, we passed the ancient Roman baths, where people used to go to get clean. People can still use them now. I was excited to see them, because not only were they beautiful (especially juxtaposed against the stormy sky), but it also brought me back to flashbacks of Mr. Zoch's Latin class, where we learned about the baths. The baths were public, though you didn't see everyone there. Rich people or equites were definitely more common than slaves. Large ones were known as thermae and smaller and more private ones were known as balnea. They were places for bathing as well as socializing. Each town had at least one, and villas (or the really rich people houses) often had a private one. You were more likely to find slaves working there. Water usually came from an aqueduct, a channel used to convey water. In some cases, they were able to use water directly from a nearby stream or river.
The bath was laid out around three rooms: the caldarium, the tepidarium, and the frigidarium (hot, warm, and cold, respectively). Though not featured in the old baths, newer baths had two other rooms: sudatorium, the warm and moist steam bath, and the laconicum, the dry steam bath, which was a lot like a sauna.
Before the bath, the slaves would come up and scrape the dirty oil from your body. Then you would go into the three rooms: caladarium, tepidarium, and frigidarium. There was a set of baths for men and a set for women. The women's were slightly smaller.
LOOK IT'S THE AMERICAN FLAG!!!
The soldiers outside let us take pictures of them, which was ridiculously fangirlish, but they were really nice about it.
I met the public affairs officer of the embassy, Nathan Bland, and he told us that before this, he'd worked in China. I told him that, even though I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with my life, China's definitely in my future. He gave his business card to me and told me that he would put me in touch with the university he studied abroad with when he was in college, which is in this small village in Northwest China where you learn the language very well because there's hardly any English. :D
After the embassy, we visited the Doria Pamphilij Gallery and saw a lot of cool stuff.
^ That's Caravaggio's "The Penitent," which was one of several paintings in a room full of Mary Magdalenes and St. Jeromes. This picture was unusual for Caravaggio because it uses a lot of light, which the card next to the painting said was indicative of Caravaggio's earlier (and lighter?) days. She actually has the same pose that Mary has in an earlier painting of the Holy Family, which was interesting. Kristin, who presented on it, said that he told the model to pose the same way and that the model happened to be drying her hair at the time. Mary Magdalene is richly dressed, but her pose shows that she feels poor on the inside.
Sister Terri filled in our knowledge about Mary Magdalene, saying that it never says in the Bible that she was a prostitute or a loose woman. There was an attempt to silence Mary Magdalene around the 4th century. She has her own gospel, and they found her house on the Sea of Galilee (or a temple?) next to where Peter's spot was. They found it and stopped excavating it when they found out it was hers. However, the recent stir with Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code influenced them to start excavating it again. Mary Magdalene also has her own gospel, though it's not in the bible, along with the Gospel of Philip (and I think the Gospel of Thomas?). In the picture are perfume and jewels, also signs that she's a loose woman.
In the gospels, Mary Magdalene shows up at the end as the witness to Jesus's burial in the tomb and his resurrection. Women were not reliable witnesses at the time, so this is very interesting. I need to look up the gospel accounts and see what else is going on.
I found more information about the painting here. In addition to what I saw, Sister Terri told us, and what Kristin presented, this website says that the warm colors are indicative of her passion for Christ and Christ's own passion. It also says that the perfume is a sign of when she washed Christ's feet with her hair, but I'm not sure if that was her or Mary, Martha's sister? I'll look that up too. Hold me to this!
From the website, I also got a much better picture of her:
^ This one's kind of dark, and I wish that I'd taken down the name and artist, but I didn't, so I can't look up anything else about it. It was this hellish, dark, demon scene that was very disturbing. It caught Antonia's attention, and she, me, and Jacob sat there trying to figure it out. It was interesting but also unsettling. But I guess that's the awesomeness of art, that it can evoke those emotions like that.
^ Dr. Sebastian almost pushed me out of his way on the way to this painting, which is a medieval painting of the Annunciation. Thanks to Hutch, I have a little information on Medieval paintings: flat faces with little to no expression. In this one, Mary's getting pregnant in the process of the picture. Dr. Sebastian said that it's common for Mary to be reading in medieval paintings, especially for the Annunciation, the passage in Isaiah that talks about a Savior coming.
Here's the Caravaggio about the Holy Family!!! The focal point is actually the angel, which is interesting for the painting. Personally, I thought it was interesting that Joseph was the only one interacting with the angel, holding music up for the angel to play as Mary and Jesus sleep.
Also...random, but it never says anywhere that there were three Magi. That was something that was made a thing as years went on.
The ceiling in the room this statue was in actually fell in, breaking this statue into pieces. It was put back together in one of the most successful restorations in history. It's amazing. It looks like it's never been broken.
After this, we were set out on our own, so Antonia and I headed for San Ignacio di Loyola, or St. Ignatius of Loyola Church. :) It was gorgeous.
^ SO CUTE.
There was a wall of hearts in there--like fake ones. And there was an altar of bones--real ones.
Pantheon! We went there after Ignatius. :) For longer this time, since we weren't lost. :)
We also went to Piazza Navona after that. Actually, come to think of it, Antonia and I had a very productive day.
So, after this, we were exhausted and went back.
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