A Short Day

As part of the last day of the week, it was supposed to be a short day; we planned on parting ways for lunch and extra activities around 1 or 2. Things never happen, however, like they are supposed to. Steve allowed us to sleep for an extra hour this morning and we had to meet to go on the subway around 9 AM. Unfortunately, some girls' shorts were considered too short to enter the churches we would be seeing, so they had to change. Fifteen minutes later, we were able to leave for the subway. 

The first stop we made was to the outskirts of a town in Italy where Santa Costanza and Saint Agnes were buried. They have since been moved to a more prestigious resting place, but the old buildings still stand. Okay, so I can't talk about Santa Costanza, whose building we saw first, without explaining the importance of Saint Agnes.

Saint Agnes lived during the time of Diocletian (he was the guy who really hated Christians and tried to have them all killed). She was a follower of Christianity rather than Paganism. Some dude wanted to marry her but she wouldn't have it (consent, am I right?) and because of that, he reported her for being a Christian. Now, because it was illegal to kill a virgin, it was commanded that she be dragged naked to a brothel but the legend states that when this happened, she miraculously grew hair at top speed which covered her nakedness. All the men that tried to hurt her at the brothel were struck blind! Since this plan didn't seem to be working out, some guys decided to just burn her at the stake. But wouldn't you know it, Agnes just wouldn't burn. Finally, they were successful in ending her life by decapitation. She was just 12 years old when this happened around 304 (?) CE. She is known as the patron saint of gardeners, young girls, and chastity. 

SO. A little after Diocletian leaves the stage, Constantine rolls up and he has a sister named Costanza who got sick with leprosy (while this is a real sickness, that was a generic name for diseases back then). During this time, she prayed at the tomb of Saint Agnes. The saint came to her and told her to convert to Christianity. I'm pretty sure that Costanza got better and she did convert to Christianity, which had a major impact on her mom Helen as well as her brother, the emperor, Constantine. 

The first building we saw was the royal mausoleum of Santa Costanza. This building had a major impact on all future buildings, particularly baptisteries. Okay, so how these buildings work, is there is typically a dome at the center, then in a ring around it is what's called the ambulatory. The ambulatory has a kind of domed roof, so it's not flat. Because Christians never really had an architectural style of their own, they appropriated existing styles for their needs. In addition to the architecture, the art was also borrowed from pre-existing cultures, so a lot of pagan symbols were used (The image of Apollo becomes Jesus, images of Venus become the Virgin Mary, wine which would symbolize Bacchus or Dionysis (gods of wine), would now reference the atonement). This particular building is rich with incredible mosaics, which are made with pinkie fingernail sized tiles of colored terracotta or colored glass! It was around the time of this building's construction that numbers became very important in terms of symbolism. Within this building, there are 12 arches, 12 columns, and 12 windows. It was absolutely incredible to see such an old building with art that still survives!

So about the church of Saint Agnes. The oldest part of the building is the mosaics, which are honestly just spectacular. The figures you'll see in the image below might look a bit weird, but that's because they're in the Byzantine style, so the large eyes they have aren't to eat you, it's to provide a mystical quality. Saint Agnes is in the center with the pope on her left holding up the building for God's approval. The ceilings on these buildings are just incredible; there is such an ornate quality that is forgotten about in modern architecture, and I think it's just a shame. 

We took a bus and maybe a metro to our next stop. Right outside the buildings we were going to see was the largest obelisk in Rome. The engravings are so deep in this one that it can still be easily read. If I knew Egyptian, I'd translate for the blog.

Our stop was to see the Baptistery of Constantine. Okay, so Christians/Catholics don't worship Constantine, which it might seem like they do because he's all I've been writing about for the last few days. He's just really very significant to their history. This building is the oldest building in Rome and the oldest baptistery in the world! The eight sides to this structure are intended to symbolize resurrection. At the start of the practice of baptism for the Christians, it was done by immersion. Some point down the road, they switched it to baptism by sprinkling. Within this building are two cathedrals: one to Saint John the Baptist and another to Saint John the Evangelist.
The reason why this is was during the time before there was a pope, some dude was sent to Turkey for a meeting for the Roman Catholic Church. During this meeting, this guy proposed some progressive ideas which labeled him a heretic. People were out to get him so he hid in the tomb of a Saint John during which he prayed and promised God that he would make a chapel to these two Johns if he survived. When he finally got out, he was good on his world and got the ball rolling for the two chapels attached to the baptistery to be built (some perspective on time, this event occurred about 100 years after the baptistery was built).

The entire interior of the building is just spectacular.

The next place we went to was The Papal Arch-basilica of St John Lateran. Okay, so while the Pope typically hangs out at St. Peter's Square in the Vatican, he does most of his business on the other side of town. IDK fam. Anyway, this building has some pretty ancient roots. The gold columns inside the basilica (a basilica is the name of a church where the Archbishop of a town presides. Because the Pope is the boss, he is the Archbishop of this specific church. I'm still not sure why he's not the boss just at St Peter's, but maybe he likes to get out of the house once in a while) (I was talking about the gold columns) claim to be from the very prestigious, incredibly ancient Temple of Jupiter. The wife of Constantine owned at least the location where this building currently stands but I'm pretty sure a portion of the building is from around that time. Anyway, the main doors to the building originate from the Curia building which is located at the ancient Roman Forum. They're massive! Over the altar is a canopy which dates back to the 14th century CE and holds ancient relics such as the heads of Peter & Paul (IDK fam). The sculptures which adorn the building were done by followers of Italian Baroque artist Bernini, who we will talk about ANOTHER TIME (someday, I promise. Just know that he is a Pretty Big DealTM). The sculptures are of saints. A portion of the ceiling was done by Borromini, a rival of Bernini. Inside this church are little private chapels, typically for rich families (at least that's how it was Back In The Day).

The final stop we were supposed to make before breaking for lunch was the catacombs. Now, I love a good spooky place but I love lunch even more and it was already 2 PM. I had some tasteless crackers which only made me more hungry. In addition to being just so darn hungry, we are all very careful about how much water we drink in a day because the restroom situation in Italy isn't anything like what goes on in the USA. First of all, most toilets don't have toilet seats. I can't explain it, there just isn't a toilet seat (a man probably designed it). Some times there is toilet paper, sometimes there isn't (men, AM I RIGHT). Some times you have to actually pay to use the toilet. But most of the time, there just aren't public toilets available. We've been trying to do the delicate balance of being just dehydrated enough that we don't have to use the bathroom often but not so dehydrated that we are risking death.
The last time we ate was around 8:30 and it was about 2. We took a bus to the far side of town and it didn't have air conditioning. The view once we got to the catacombs, though, was gorgeous. I've included a pic of me and fellow student JoAnn with just a taste of the view. Nothing could beat an Italian country side, except maybe lunch.

A bit about the catacombs. Way back in the day, people weren't allowed to be buried within the city walls. Because there are just so many people, they needed to find a sustainable way to dispose of the bodies. That's where the catacombs come in. The catacombs can easily go down in the ground about 20 meters (I don't know what that equates to in feet so go google it and let me know in the comments) and this particular catacomb had at least 12-13 miles of distance we could cover if it was permitted. Anyway, so when someone would die, they were dig down and create a horizontal slot in the earth. Then they would keep digging down as people died. Eventually they made pathways and everything. The poor people would just be buried in a slot in the wall. There would be a slab that covered the body and hopefully cover the smell but who's to say. The rich people would be buried with their family in a type of ancient mausoleum within the catacombs. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures or I would post them. So, go google it. It dropped down to about 50 degrees. I hated looking down the corridors of the catacombs only to see a never ending tunnel of darkness. While it was neat to be down there, it was way nice just to get out.

When we got out of the catacombs, it was about 3ish and I was starving but it didn't seem like anyone was in a rush to get food! We went to the bus stop and waited until just after 4 for the bus to come. We saw a lizard and a number of near car accidents. When the bus finally came, we ran onto it and found that there was no AC again. We were trying to keep our hangry attitudes to ourselves but the heat was slowly getting to us. It was almost five when we got to the subway. Me and two other girls threw caution to the wind and raced down the stairs where we were met with incredible temperatures and jumped on the first train out of there. We waved to Steve as the subway pulled away without him and the rest of the group (you snooze you lose). With dinner only two hours away, we didn't want to eat anything too heavy (even though I'm guaranteed going to get a caprese salad for the fourth night in a row since that's all Italian vegetarians eat) so we found a decent crepe place. When I ordered in Italian, they praised me and I needed that. Besides the praise, the food was just incredible. I'll have to go again!

On the way home, I found this piece of silly graffiti. As always, post in the comments if you have any questions about what I'm studying and I'd be happy to answer.